TY - JOUR
T1 - Leverage and the Maturity Structure of Debt in Emerging Markets
AU - Mateus, Cesário Lameiras Rodrigues
AU - Terra, Paolo
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - The aim of this paper is to analyse for a multi-country large emerging market sample the choice between debt and equity simultaneously with the decision between short- and long-term debts. In order to investigate the joint decision among leverage and maturity, we examine an unique sample of 986 firms and 13,490 firm-year observations from Latin America and 686 firms and 7919 firm-year observations from Eastern Europe for the period 1990-2003. We employ dynamic panel data analysis using Generalized Method of moments. The empirical results support three main findings. First, the cross-effects between leverage and maturity behave exactly the opposite between Latin America and Eastern Europe sub-samples. Capital structure and debt maturity are policy complements in Latin America and substitutes in Eastern Europe. Second, there is a significant dynamic effects component in the determination of leverage and maturity. Finally, adjustment to the target, maturity is by no means costless and instantaneous with firm’s facing moderate adjustment costs.
AB - The aim of this paper is to analyse for a multi-country large emerging market sample the choice between debt and equity simultaneously with the decision between short- and long-term debts. In order to investigate the joint decision among leverage and maturity, we examine an unique sample of 986 firms and 13,490 firm-year observations from Latin America and 686 firms and 7919 firm-year observations from Eastern Europe for the period 1990-2003. We employ dynamic panel data analysis using Generalized Method of moments. The empirical results support three main findings. First, the cross-effects between leverage and maturity behave exactly the opposite between Latin America and Eastern Europe sub-samples. Capital structure and debt maturity are policy complements in Latin America and substitutes in Eastern Europe. Second, there is a significant dynamic effects component in the determination of leverage and maturity. Finally, adjustment to the target, maturity is by no means costless and instantaneous with firm’s facing moderate adjustment costs.
UR - http://file.scirp.org/Html/5-1490221_38562.htm
U2 - 10.4236/jmf.2013.33A005
DO - 10.4236/jmf.2013.33A005
M3 - Journal article
VL - 3
SP - 46
EP - 59
JO - Journal of Mathematical Finance
JF - Journal of Mathematical Finance
IS - 3
ER -