IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intfin/v59y2019icp58-73.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trust and the cost of debt financing

Author

Listed:
  • Meng, Yijun
  • Yin, Chao

Abstract

This paper examines the relation between the level of trust in a country and the cost of debt. Using data on firms located in 22 countries over a 20-year period, we quantify the country trust level and find strong evidence that firms in countries with a higher level of societal trust have lower bond yield spreads. We also find that the impact of trust on the cost of debt is more pronounced in countries with a poor governance environment and during a time of financial crisis. Overall, our results highlight the role of social capital in shaping corporate financial behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Meng, Yijun & Yin, Chao, 2019. "Trust and the cost of debt financing," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 58-73.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfin:v:59:y:2019:i:c:p:58-73
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2018.11.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1042443118304426
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.intfin.2018.11.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Kaufmann & Aart Kraay, 2008. "Governance Indicators: Where Are We, Where Should We Be Going?," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 23(1), pages 1-30, January.
    2. Zak, Paul J & Knack, Stephen, 2001. "Trust and Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(470), pages 295-321, April.
    3. Laura Bottazzi & Marco Da Rin & Thomas Hellmann, 2016. "Editor's Choice The Importance of Trust for Investment: Evidence from Venture Capital," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(9), pages 2283-2318.
    4. Biddle, Gary C. & Hilary, Gilles & Verdi, Rodrigo S., 2009. "How does financial reporting quality relate to investment efficiency?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2-3), pages 112-131, December.
    5. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    6. Boubakri, Narjess & Ghouma, Hatem, 2010. "Control/ownership structure, creditor rights protection, and the cost of debt financing: International evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2481-2499, October.
    7. Pevzner, Mikhail & Xie, Fei & Xin, Xiangang, 2015. "When firms talk, do investors listen? The role of trust in stock market reactions to corporate earnings announcements," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 190-223.
    8. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Mastruzzi, Massimo, 2007. "Governance Matters VI: Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators, 1996-2006," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4280, The World Bank.
    9. Chami, Ralph & Fullenkamp, Connel, 2002. "Trust and efficiency," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(9), pages 1785-1809, September.
    10. Marina Martynova & Luc Renneboog, 2010. "Spillover of Corporate Governance Standards in Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisition," Chapters, in: Alessio M. Pacces (ed.), The Law and Economics of Corporate Governance, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Yaxuan Qi & Lukas Roth & John K Wald, 2011. "How legal environments affect the use of bond covenants," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 42(2), pages 235-262, February.
    12. Philippe Aghion & John Van Reenen & Luigi Zingales, 2013. "Innovation and Institutional Ownership," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 277-304, February.
    13. Xuan Tian & Tracy Yue Wang, 2014. "Tolerance for Failure and Corporate Innovation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(1), pages 211-255, January.
    14. L. Bottazzi & M. Da Rin & T. Hellmann, 2007. "The Importance of Trust for Investment: Evidence from Venture Capital," Working Papers 612, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    15. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2004. "The Role of Social Capital in Financial Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 526-556, June.
    16. Hall, Bronwyn H, 1993. "The Stock Market's Valuation of R&D Investment during the 1980's," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 259-264, May.
    17. Ioannis Oikonomou & Chris Brooks & Stephen Pavelin, 2014. "The Effects of Corporate Social Performance on the Cost of Corporate Debt and Credit Ratings," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 49(1), pages 49-75, February.
    18. Michael A Witt & Gordon Redding, 2009. "Culture, meaning, and institutions: Executive rationale in Germany and Japan," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 40(5), pages 859-885, June.
    19. Hsu, Po-Hsuan & Tian, Xuan & Xu, Yan, 2014. "Financial development and innovation: Cross-country evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 116-135.
    20. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2009. "Cultural Biases in Economic Exchange?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1095-1131.
    21. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    22. Karl V. Lins & Henri Servaes & Ane Tamayo, 2017. "Social Capital, Trust, and Firm Performance: The Value of Corporate Social Responsibility during the Financial Crisis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(4), pages 1785-1824, August.
    23. Henri Servaesh & Ane Tamayo, 2017. "The role of social capital in corporations: a review," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(2), pages 201-220.
    24. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2008. "Trusting the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2557-2600, December.
    25. Miller, Darius P. & Puthenpurackal, John J., 2002. "The Costs, Wealth Effects, and Determinants of International Capital Raising: Evidence from Public Yankee Bonds," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 455-485, October.
    26. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Servaes, Henri & Tamayo, Ane, 2017. "The role of social capital in corporations: a review," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 69209, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    28. Gordon Redding, 2005. "The thick description and comparison of societal systems of capitalism," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 36(2), pages 123-155, March.
    29. Todd A. Gormley & David A. Matsa, 2014. "Common Errors: How to (and Not to) Control for Unobserved Heterogeneity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(2), pages 617-661.
    30. J. Tobin, 1958. "Liquidity Preference as Behavior Towards Risk," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 25(2), pages 65-86.
    31. Arturo Bris & Christos Cabolis, 2008. "The Value of Investor Protection: Firm Evidence from Cross-Border Mergers," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 605-648, April.
    32. Williamson, Oliver E, 1993. "Calculativeness, Trust, and Economic Organization," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 453-486, April.
    33. He, Jie (Jack) & Tian, Xuan, 2013. "The dark side of analyst coverage: The case of innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 856-878.
    34. Gregory Jackson & Richard Deeg, 2008. "Comparing capitalisms: understanding institutional diversity and its implications for international business," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 39(4), pages 540-561, June.
    35. Fabrizio Gilardi, 2010. "Who Learns from What in Policy Diffusion Processes?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 650-666, July.
    36. Ahern, Kenneth R. & Daminelli, Daniele & Fracassi, Cesare, 2015. "Lost in translation? The effect of cultural values on mergers around the world," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 165-189.
    37. Dudley, Evan & Zhang, Ning, 2016. "Trust and corporate cash holdings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 363-387.
    38. García Lara, Juan Manuel & García Osma, Beatriz & Penalva, Fernando, 2016. "Accounting conservatism and firm investment efficiency," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 221-238.
    39. Andy C W Chui & Alison E Lloyd & Chuck C Y Kwok, 2002. "The Determination of Capital Structure: Is National Culture a Missing Piece to the Puzzle?," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 33(1), pages 99-127, March.
    40. Jefferson Duarte & Stephan Siegel & Lance Young, 2012. "Trust and Credit: The Role of Appearance in Peer-to-peer Lending," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(8), pages 2455-2484.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fonseka, Mohan & Samarakoon, Lalith P. & Tian, Gao-Liang & Seng, Ratney, 2021. "The impact of social trust and state ownership on investment efficiency of Chinese firms," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    2. Peng Huang & Yue Lu & Robert Faff, 2021. "Social trust and the speed of corporate leverage adjustment: evidence from around the globe," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(2), pages 3261-3303, June.
    3. Paul Brockman & Sadok El Ghoul & Omrane Guedhami & Ying Zheng, 2022. "Does social trust affect international contracting? Evidence from foreign bond covenants," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(6), pages 1011-1044, August.
    4. Paul Brockman & Sadok El Ghoul & Omrane Guedhami & Ying Zheng, 0. "Does social trust affect international contracting? Evidence from foreign bond covenants," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 0, pages 1-34.
    5. Li, Xiaorong & Wang, Steven Shuye & Wang, Xue, 2019. "Trust and IPO underpricing," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 224-248.
    6. Fei Xie & Bohui Zhang & Wenrui Zhang, 2022. "Trust, Incomplete Contracting, and Corporate Innovation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(5), pages 3419-3443, May.
    7. Mazumder, Sharif & Rao, Ramesh, 2023. "Social trust and the choice between bank debt and public debt: Evidence from international data," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    8. Knetsch, Andreas & Salzmann, Astrid, 2022. "Societal trust and corporate underinvestment," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    9. Ho, Kung-Cheng & Yen, Huang-Ping & Gu, Yan & Shi, Lisi, 2020. "Does societal trust make firms more trustworthy?," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).
    10. Chauhan, Yogesh & Jaiswall, Manju & Goyal, Vinay, 2022. "Does societal trust affect corporate capital structure?," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(PA).
    11. Zhang, Cheng & Ho, Kung-Cheng & Yan, Cheng & Gong, Yujing, 2023. "Societal trust and firm-level trust: Substitute or complement? An international evidence," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    12. Su, Kun & Wu, Ji & Lu, Yue, 2022. "With trust we innovate: Evidence from corporate R&D expenditure," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    13. Gu, Leilei & Liu, Zhongyang & Ma, Sichao & Wang, Hongyu, 2022. "Social trust and corporate financial asset holdings: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    14. El Ghoul, Sadok & Gong, Zhaoran (Jason) & Guedhami, Omrane & Hou, Fangfang & Tong, Wilson H.S., 2023. "Social trust and firm innovation," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    15. Ding, Xiaoya (Sara) & Guo, Mengmeng & Kuai, Yicheng & Niu, Geng, 2023. "Social trust and firm innovation: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 474-493.
    16. Dudley, Evan & Zhang, Ning, 2016. "Trust and corporate cash holdings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 363-387.
    17. Pevzner, Mikhail & Xie, Fei & Xin, Xiangang, 2015. "When firms talk, do investors listen? The role of trust in stock market reactions to corporate earnings announcements," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 190-223.
    18. Quentin Dupont & Jonathan M. Karpoff, 2020. "The Trust Triangle: Laws, Reputation, and Culture in Empirical Finance Research," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 217-238, May.
    19. Abdelsalam, Omneya & Chantziaras, Antonios & Batten, Jonathan A. & Aysan, Ahmet Faruk, 2021. "Major shareholders’ trust and market risk: Substituting weak institutions with trust," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    20. Qin, Wei & Liang, Quanxi & Jiao, Yan & Lu, Meiting & Shan, Yaowen, 2022. "Social trust and dividend payouts: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Societal trust; Social capital; Bond yield spreads; Informal institutions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:intfin:v:59:y:2019:i:c:p:58-73. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/intfin .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.