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Firm Performance and (Foreign) Debt Financing before and during the Crisis: Evidence from Firm-Level Data

Author

Listed:
  • Mateja Gabrijelčič

    (Bank of Slovenia)

  • Uroš Herman

    (GSEFM, Goethe University, Frankfurt)

  • Andreja Lenarčič

    (ESM)

Abstract

This paper studies the effects of financial leverage and foreign financing on firm performance before and during the recent crisis, using a large panel of Slovenian companies. We find a significant negative impact of leverage on firm performance, even when we explicitly control for the reverse causality between the two variables. The negative effect, albeit weaker, persists also in the crisis period. Firms with some foreign debt performed better on average than firms relying only on domestic financing. At the same time, they suffered a stronger decrease in performance if their total leverage increased. Moreover, when we explicitly control for the amount of foreign financing, we find that it has a positive and highly significant effect on firm performance. The significant positive effect of foreign financing in the pre-crisis period seems to be entirely driven by privately owned firms, while the effects are negative for the state owned companies. During the crisis, the effects are positive but insignificant for both ownership types.Finally, when comparing domestic and foreign owned firms, we see no substantial variation in the coefficients.

Suggested Citation

  • Mateja Gabrijelčič & Uroš Herman & Andreja Lenarčič, 2016. "Firm Performance and (Foreign) Debt Financing before and during the Crisis: Evidence from Firm-Level Data," Working Papers 15, European Stability Mechanism.
  • Handle: RePEc:stm:wpaper:15
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    Cited by:

    1. Biswajit Banerjee & Jelena Ćirjaković, 2021. "Firm Indebtedness, Deleveraging, and Exit: The Experience of Slovenia during the Financial Crisis, 2008–2014," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(6), pages 537-570, November.
    2. Vujanović, Nina & Stojčić, Nebojša & Hashi, Iraj, 2021. "FDI spillovers and firm productivity during crisis: Empirical evidence from transition economies," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 45(2).
    3. Crt Lenarcic & Georgios Papadopoulos, 2020. "Determinants of Firm Investment: Evidence from Slovenian Firm-Level Data," South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics, Association of Economic Universities of South and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea Region, vol. 18(2), pages 159-180.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Leverage; foreign leverage; firm performance; instrumental variable; panel data; crisis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt

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