IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdi/opques/qef_308_16.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The debt of Italian non-financial firms: an international comparison

Author

Listed:
  • Antonio De Socio

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Paolo Finaldi Russo

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

In the run-up to the financial crisis Italian firms significantly increased their debt in absolute terms and in relation to equity and GDP. The positive gap in firms� leverage between Italy and other euro-area countries has widened in recent years, despite the outstanding debt of Italian firms has decreased since 2011. In this work we document the magnitude of this gap using both aggregate macro data and firm-level information. We find that, controlling for several firm-specific characteristics (i.e. age, profitability, asset tangibility, asset liquidity, turnover growth), the leverage of Italian firms is about 10 percentage points higher than in other euro area countries. Differences are systematically larger among micro and small firms, whereas they are small and weakly significant for firms with assets above 300 million euros.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio De Socio & Paolo Finaldi Russo, 2016. "The debt of Italian non-financial firms: an international comparison," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 308, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_308_16
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/qef/2016-0308/QEF_308_16.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brown, James R. & Petersen, Bruce C., 2009. "Why has the investment-cash flow sensitivity declined so sharply? Rising R&D and equity market developments," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 971-984, May.
    2. John R. Graham & Mark T. Leary, 2011. "A Review of Empirical Capital Structure Research and Directions for the Future," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 309-345, December.
    3. Antonio De Socio & Valentina Nigro, 2012. "Does corporate taxation affect cross-country firm leverage?," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 889, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    4. Faccio, Mara & Xu, Jin, 2015. "Taxes and Capital Structure," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(3), pages 277-300, June.
    5. Silvia Magri, 2014. "Does issuing equity help R&D activity? Evidence from unlisted Italian high-tech manufacturing firms," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(8), pages 825-854, November.
    6. Emilia Bonaccorsi di Patti & Alessio D’Ignazio & Marco Gallo & Giacinto Micucci, 2015. "The Role of Leverage in Firm Solvency: Evidence From Bank Loans," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 1(2), pages 253-286, July.
    7. Ivo Welch, 2011. "Two Common Problems in Capital Structure Research: The Financial‐Debt‐To‐Asset Ratio and Issuing Activity Versus Leverage Changes," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 11(1), pages 1-17, March.
    8. Silvia Magri, 2014. "Does issuing equities help R&D activity? Evidence from unlisted Italian high-tech manufacturing firms," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 978, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    9. Rajan, Raghuram G & Zingales, Luigi, 1995. "What Do We Know about Capital Structure? Some Evidence from International Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1421-1460, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Finaldi Russo, Paolo & Nigro, Valentina & Pastorelli, Sabrina, 2024. "Bank lending to small firms: Metamorphosis of a financing model," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 13-31.
    2. Lucio Masserini & Matilde Bini & Alessandro Zeli, 2021. "A Longitudinal Analysis of Riskiness Indicators After the 2008 and 2011 Economic Crises: The Case of Italian Manufacturing," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 156(2), pages 499-513, August.
    3. Nicola Branzoli & Antonella Caiumi, 2020. "How effective is an incremental ACE in addressing the debt bias? Evidence from corporate tax returns," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(6), pages 1485-1519, December.
    4. Giordano, Claire & Marinucci, Marco & Silvestrini, Andrea, 2019. "The macro determinants of firms' and households' investment: Evidence from Italy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 118-133.
    5. Antonio De Socio & Enrico Sette, 2018. "Firms’ investments during two crises," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1173, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.

    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. HOSONO Kaoru & TAKIZAWA Miho, 2017. "Intangible Capital and the Choice of External Financing Sources," Discussion papers 17080, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    2. Nicola Branzoli & Antonella Caiumi, 2020. "How effective is an incremental ACE in addressing the debt bias? Evidence from corporate tax returns," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(6), pages 1485-1519, December.
    3. Bilgin, Rumeysa, 2023. "The Selection Of Control Variables In Capital Structure Research With Machine Learning," SocArXiv e26qf, Center for Open Science.
    4. Mai, Nhat Chi, 2012. "Market timing, taxes and capital structure: evidence from Vietnam," OSF Preprints t3mvs, Center for Open Science.
    5. Temimi, Akram & Zeitun, Rami & Mimouni, Karim, 2016. "How does the tax status of a country impact capital structure? Evidence from the GCC region," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 37, pages 71-89.
    6. San Martín, Pablo & Saona, Paolo, 2017. "Capital structure in the Chilean corporate sector: Revisiting the stylized facts," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 163-174.
    7. Lee, Lillian & Chowdhury, Anup & Shubita, Moade, 2023. "Impact of Paris Agreement on financing strategy: Evidence from global FPSO industry," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    8. Amiyatosh Purnanandam & Uday Rajan, 2018. "Growth Option Exercise and Capital Structure [Illiquidity and stock returns: cross-section and time series effects]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(1), pages 177-206.
    9. Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng & Zhou, Qing & Pan, Zheyao & Faff, Robert, 2021. "Business shocks and corporate leverage," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    10. Drobetz, Wolfgang & Gounopoulos, Dimitrios & Merikas, Andreas & Schröder, Henning, 2013. "Capital structure decisions of globally-listed shipping companies," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 49-76.
    11. Didier, Tatiana & Levine, Ross & Llovet Montanes, Ruth & Schmukler, Sergio L., 2021. "Capital market financing and firm growth," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    12. Ralf Diedrich & Stefan Dierkes & Hans-Christian Gröger, 2022. "A note on the cost of capital with fixed payout ratios," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 59(4), pages 1559-1575, November.
    13. Lin, Shannon & Tong, Naqiong & Tucker, Alan L., 2014. "Corporate tax aggression and debt," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 227-241.
    14. Vo, Xuan Vinh & Ellis, Craig, 2017. "An empirical investigation of capital structure and firm value in Vietnam," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 90-94.
    15. An, Zhe & Li, Donghui & Yu, Jin, 2016. "Earnings management, capital structure, and the role of institutional environments," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 131-152.
    16. Kim, Hyunseob, 2020. "How does labor market size affect firm capital structure? Evidence from large plant openings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 277-294.
    17. Hassan, M. Kabir & Karim, Md. Sydul & Kozlowski, Steven E., 2022. "Implications of public corruption for local firms: Evidence from corporate debt maturity," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    18. Katagiri, Mitsuru, 2014. "A macroeconomic approach to corporate capital structure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 79-94.
    19. Yang, Jin Young & Suh, Hyunduk, 2023. "Heterogeneous effects of macroprudential policies on firm leverage and value," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    20. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2016_012 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Haavio, Markus & Ripatti, Antti & Takalo, Tuomas, 2016. "Saving Wall Street or main street," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 12/2016, Bank of Finland.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    leverage; financial structure; euro area;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bdi:opques:qef_308_16. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdigvit.html .

    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.