Determinants of corporate debt maturity in South America: Do institutional quality and financial development matter?

作者：Kirch Guilherme; Soares Terra Paulo Renato

来源：Journal of Corporate Finance, 2012, 18(4): 980-993.

DOI：10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2012.05.004

• Debt maturity
• Institutional quality
• Financial development
• Factor analysis
• Dynamic panel data analysis
• South America

We test whether a country's level of financial development or institutional quality (or both) has a first-order effect on corporate debt maturity decisions on a sample of 359 non-financial firms from five South American countries over a 12-year period. We find that there is a substantial dynamic component in the determination of a firm's debt maturity, and firms face moderate adjustment frictions toward their optimal maturities. More importantly, the level of financial development does not influence debt maturity, whereas the institutional quality of a country has a significant positive effect on the level of long-term debt in a firm's financial structure. Our results support the hypothesis that the quality of national institutions is an important determinant of corporate financing in general and of debt maturity in particular.

• 出版日期2012-9