IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/quaeco/v49y2009i2p197-213.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Determinants of capital structure choice: A structural equation modeling approach

Author

Listed:
  • Chang, Chingfu
  • Lee, Alice C.
  • Lee, Cheng F.

Abstract

In their seminal research on the determinants of capital structure choice using structural equation modeling (SEM), Titman and Wessels [Titman, S., & Wessels, R. (1988). The determinants of capital structure choice. Journal of Finance, 43, 1-19] obtain weak results and hence call for further investigation. We apply a Multiple Indicators and Multiple Causes (MIMIC) model, with refined indicators, to a pooled sample for the period 1988-2003 and find more convincing results than those obtained by Titman and Wessels. With the capital structure measured simultaneously by the ratios of long-term debt, short-term debt, and convertible debt to the market value of equity, our results show that growth is the most important determinant of capital structure choice, followed in order by profitability, collateral value, volatility, non-debt tax shields, and uniqueness. Moreover, we find that long-term debt is the most important proxy of capital structure, followed by short-term debt, and then convertible debt.

Suggested Citation

  • Chang, Chingfu & Lee, Alice C. & Lee, Cheng F., 2009. "Determinants of capital structure choice: A structural equation modeling approach," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 197-213, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:quaeco:v:49:y:2009:i:2:p:197-213
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1062-9769(08)00044-6
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. 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.
    2. Eugene F. Brigham, 1966. "An Analysis Of Convertible Debentures: Theory And Some Empirical Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 21(1), pages 35-54, March.
    3. 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.
    4. Bradley, Michael & Jarrell, Gregg A & Kim, E Han, 1984. "On the Existence of an Optimal Capital Structure: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 857-878, July.
    5. Eugene F. Fama, 2002. "Testing Trade-Off and Pecking Order Predictions About Dividends and Debt," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(1), pages 1-33, March.
    6. Berger, Philip G & Ofek, Eli & Yermack, David L, 1997. "Managerial Entrenchment and Capital Structure Decisions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1411-1438, September.
    7. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    8. Sanford J. Grossman & Oliver D. Hart, 1982. "Corporate Financial Structure and Managerial Incentives," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Information and Uncertainty, pages 107-140, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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.
    10. Gerald T. Garvey & Gordon Hanka, 1999. "Capital Structure and Corporate Control: The Effect of Antitakeover Statutes on Firm Leverage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 519-546, April.
    11. Laurence Booth & Varouj Aivazian & Asli Demirguc‐Kunt & Vojislav Maksimovic, 2001. "Capital Structures in Developing Countries," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 87-130, February.
    12. Barclay, Michael J & Smith, Clifford W, Jr, 1995. "The Maturity Structure of Corporate Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(2), pages 609-631, June.
    13. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
    14. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:1:p:1-19 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Toy, Norman & Stonehill, Arthur & Remmers, Lee & Wright, Richard & Beekhuisen, Theo, 1974. "A Comparative International Study of Growth, Profitability, and Risk as Determinants of Corporate Debt Ratios in the Manufacturing Sector," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(5), pages 875-886, November.
    16. DeAngelo, Harry & Masulis, Ronald W., 1980. "Optimal capital structure under corporate and personal taxation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 3-29, March.
    17. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:2:p:271-81 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Harris, Milton & Raviv, Artur, 1991. "The Theory of Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(1), pages 297-355, March.
    19. Maddala, G. S. & Nimalendran, M., 1995. "An unobserved component panel data model to study the effect of earnings surprises on stock prices, trading volumes, and spreads," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 229-242, July.
    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. Mário Santos & António Moreira & Elisabete Vieira, 2014. "Ownership concentration, contestability, family firms, and capital structure," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 18(4), pages 1063-1107, November.
    2. Huang, Guihai & Song, Frank M., 2006. "The determinants of capital structure: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 14-36.
    3. Rana El Bahsh & Ali Alattar & Aziz N. Yusuf, 2018. "Firm, Industry and Country Level Determinants of Capital Structure: Evidence from Jordan," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 8(2), pages 175-190.
    4. Antonczyk, Ron Christian & Salzmann, Astrid Juliane, 2014. "Overconfidence and optimism: The effect of national culture on capital structure," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 132-151.
    5. Yildirim, Ramazan & Masih, Mansur & Bacha, Obiyathulla Ismath, 2018. "Determinants of capital structure: evidence from Shari'ah compliant and non-compliant firms," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 198-219.
    6. Valeriya Valer’evna Metel’skaya, 2021. "Correlation-and-regression analysis of the influence of macroeconomic factors on capital structure of Russian corporations under crisis conditions," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 1-34, December.
    7. Harjeet S. Bhabra & Tong Liu & Dogan Tirtiroglu, 2008. "Capital Structure Choice in a Nascent Market: Evidence from Listed Firms in China," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 37(2), pages 341-364, June.
    8. Sanjiva Prasad & Christopher J. Green & Victor Murinde, 2005. "Company Financial Structure: A Survey and Implications for Developing Economies," Chapters, in: Christopher J. Green & Colin Kirkpatrick & Victor Murinde (ed.), Finance and Development, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Nivorozhkin, Eugene, 2005. "Financing choices of firms in EU accession countries," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 138-169, June.
    10. Pinto, João M. & Silva, Cátia S., 2021. "Does export intensity affect corporate leverage? Evidence from Portuguese SMEs," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    11. Joliet, Robert & Muller, Aline, 2013. "Capital structure effects of international expansion," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 375-393.
    12. Chen, Minjia & Matousek, Roman, 2020. "Do productive firms get external finance? Evidence from Chinese listed manufacturing firms," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    13. Hang, Markus & Geyer-Klingeberg, Jerome & Rathgeber, Andreas W. & Stöckl, Stefan, 2018. "Measurement matters—A meta-study of the determinants of corporate capital structure," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 211-225.
    14. Sanjiva Prasad & Christopher J. Green & Victor Murinde, 2001. "Company Financing, Captial Structure, and Ownership: A Survey, and Implications for Developing Economies," SUERF Studies, SUERF - The European Money and Finance Forum, number 12 edited by Morten Balling, May.
    15. Faisal Seraj Alnori & Ali Mohsen Shaddady, 2019. "Corporate Debt Choice and Board Size: The Case of Oil Exporting Economy," Journal of Applied Finance & Banking, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 9(5), pages 1-6.
    16. 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.
    17. Rongrong Zhang & Yoshio Kanazaki, 2007. "Testing static tradeoff against pecking order models of capital structure in Japanese firms," Accounting Research Journal, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 15(2), pages 24-36, June.
    18. Iván Arribas & Emili Tortosa-Ausina & TingTing Zhu, 2021. "Optimal capital structure, model uncertainty, and European SMEs," Working Papers 2021/11, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    19. A. A. Bevan & J. Danbolt, 2004. "Testing for inconsistencies in the estimation of UK capital structure determinants," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 55-66.
    20. Dimitris Margaritis & Maria Psillaki, 2007. "Capital Structure and Firm Efficiency," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(9‐10), pages 1447-1469, November.

    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:quaeco:v:49:y:2009:i:2:p:197-213. 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/inca/620167 .

    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.