IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jimfin/v157y2025ics026156062500124x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Debt specialization and diversification: International evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Duffee, Gregory R.
  • Hördahl, Peter

Abstract

We study empirically firms’ choices for debt financing, emphasizing the extensive and intensive margins of a firm’s bond financing ratio: the ratio of bond debt, both publicly traded and privately placed, to the sum of its loan and bond debt. The large data sample includes firms located in the US and nine Asian emerging markets, with total debt levels ranging from very large (billions of dollars) to small (less than a million dollars). The surprising results include a strong nonmonotonic relation between total debt and the bond financing ratio for US firms, contrasted with a largely monotonic relation for firms located in emerging markets. We also show that highly leveraged firms tend to borrow through both loans and bonds, indicating a preference for funding diversification.

Suggested Citation

  • Duffee, Gregory R. & Hördahl, Peter, 2025. "Debt specialization and diversification: International evidence," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jimfin:v:157:y:2025:i:c:s026156062500124x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103389
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026156062500124X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103389?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

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    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:jimfin:v:157:y:2025:i:c:s026156062500124x. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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/inca/30443 .

    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.