IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reveco/v82y2022icp771-783.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why have UK universities become more indebted over time?

Author

Listed:
  • Bell, Adrian R.
  • Brooks, Chris
  • Urquhart, Andrew

Abstract

Media reports of a financial apocalypse facing some UK universities were rife around the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, with much of the blame for their apparently perilous monetary situation levelled at excessive borrowing. This study examines the extent to which higher education institutions in the UK have become more indebted over the past decade and determines the factors that explain why some universities have borrowed more than others. We find that universities with vice chancellors who are older, higher paid, and who have been in their roles for a shorter time, on average have greater levels of indebtedness. We do not observe significant relationships with institutional borrowing for the gender of the vice chancellor, or their previous experience as a deputy vice chancellor or having previously held the top role elsewhere. Among university characteristics, only the level of total assets has any explanatory power for indebtedness, and not its overall institutional ratings score, whether it is a member of the Russell Group, or its total number of students.

Suggested Citation

  • Bell, Adrian R. & Brooks, Chris & Urquhart, Andrew, 2022. "Why have UK universities become more indebted over time?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 771-783.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reveco:v:82:y:2022:i:c:p:771-783
    DOI: 10.1016/j.iref.2022.08.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1059056022002076
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.iref.2022.08.008?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ray Bachan & Barry Reilly, 2015. "Is UK Vice Chancellor Pay Justified by University Performance?," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 36, pages 51-73, March.
    2. Harjoto, Maretno A. & Laksmana, Indrarini & Yang, Ya-wen, 2018. "Board diversity and corporate investment oversight," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 40-47.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Tommaso Agasisti & Carlo Salerno, 2007. "Assessing the Cost Efficiency of Italian Universities," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 455-471.
    6. Cheng, Shijun, 2008. "Board size and the variability of corporate performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 157-176, January.
    7. Degl’Innocenti, Marta & Matousek, Roman & Tzeremes, Nickolaos G., 2019. "The interconnections of academic research and universities’ “third mission”: Evidence from the UK," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    8. Henry Steck, 2003. "Corporatization of the University: Seeking Conceptual Clarity," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 585(1), pages 66-83, January.
    9. Panayiotis C. Andreou & Christodoulos Louca & Andreas P. Petrou, 2017. "CEO Age and Stock Price Crash Risk," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(3), pages 1287-1325.
    10. Jill Johnes & Swati Virmani, 2020. "Chief executive pay in UK higher education: the role of university performance," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 288(2), pages 547-576, May.
    11. Myers, Stewart C., 1984. "Capital structure puzzle," Working papers 1548-84., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    12. Schopohl, Lisa & Urquhart, Andrew & Zhang, Hanxiong, 2021. "Female CFOs, leverage and the moderating role of board diversity and CEO power," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    13. Serfling, Matthew A., 2014. "CEO age and the riskiness of corporate policies," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 251-273.
    14. Myers, Stewart C, 1984. "The Capital Structure Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 575-592, July.
    15. Stewart C. Myers, 1984. "Capital Structure Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 1393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Huang, Jiekun & Kisgen, Darren J., 2013. "Gender and corporate finance: Are male executives overconfident relative to female executives?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 822-839.
    17. Mikkelson, Wayne H. & Partch, M. Megan, 2003. "Do Persistent Large Cash Reserves Hinder Performance?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 275-294, June.
    18. Faccio, Mara & Marchica, Maria-Teresa & Mura, Roberto, 2016. "CEO gender, corporate risk-taking, and the efficiency of capital allocation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 193-209.
    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. Singleton, Carl & Bell, Adrian R. & Chung, Andy & Reade, J. James & Urquhart, Andrew, 2024. "Scoring goals: The impact of English Premier League football teams on local university admissions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 244(C).
    2. Khoo, Shee-Yee & Perotti, Pietro & Verousis, Thanos & Watermeyer, Richard, 2024. "Vice-chancellor narcissism and university performance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(1).

    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. McGuinness, Paul B., 2021. "Board member age, stock seasoning and the evolution of capital structure in Chinese firms," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(3).
    2. Ramzi Benkraiem & Amal Hamrouni & Anthony Miloudi & Ali Uyar, 2018. "Access to Finance for French Firms: Do boardroom attributes matter?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(3), pages 1267-1278.
    3. Alexandridis, George & Chen, Zhong & Zeng, Yeqin, 2021. "Financial hedging and corporate investment," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    4. Rizqa Anita & Giri Suseno & Muhammad Rasyid Abdillah & Nor Balkish Zakaria, 2024. "How Do Female Directors Moderate the Effect of Family Control on Firm Value and Leverage? Evidence from Indonesia," Indian Journal of Corporate Governance, , vol. 17(1), pages 102-129, June.
    5. Ummar Aftab & Attiya Yasmin Javid & Waseem Akhter, 2018. "The Determinants of Cash Holdings around Different Regions of the World," Business & Economic Review, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, Pakistan, vol. 10(2), pages 151-182, June.
    6. García, C. José & Herrero, Begoña, 2021. "Female directors, capital structure, and financial distress," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 592-601.
    7. Theophilus Lartey & Kwabena Kesse & Albert Danso, 2020. "Ceo Extraversion And Capital Structure Decisions: The Role Of Firm Dynamics, Product Market Competition, And Financial Crisis," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 43(4), pages 847-893, December.
    8. DasGupta, Ranjan & Dhochak, Monika, 2021. "Risk-Antecedents of Firms and Strategic Mediators – New Evidence from a Cross-Country Analysis," American Business Review, Pompea College of Business, University of New Haven, vol. 24(1), pages 3-35, May.
    9. Xin Qu & Majella Percy & Fang Hu & Jenny Stewart, 2022. "Can CEO equity‐based compensation limit investment‐related agency problems?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(2), pages 2579-2614, June.
    10. 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.
    11. Wiwattanakantang, Yupana, 1999. "An empirical study on the determinants of the capital structure of Thai firms," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 7(3-4), pages 371-403, August.
    12. 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.
    13. Souad Chaieb, 2021. "The Impact of Cash Holding on Debt Cost," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 11(6), pages 75-93.
    14. Wu, Xueping & Au Yeung, Chau Kin, 2012. "Firm growth type and capital structure persistence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 3427-3443.
    15. Harford, Jarrad & Klasa, Sandy & Walcott, Nathan, 2009. "Do firms have leverage targets? Evidence from acquisitions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 1-14, July.
    16. Filipe Sardo & Elisabete S. Vieira & Zélia Serrasqueiro, 2022. "The role of gender and succession on the debt adjustments of family firm capital structure," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 12(2), pages 349-372, June.
    17. Nguyen, Thao & Bai, Min & Hou, Yang & Vu, Manh-Chien, 2021. "Corporate governance and dynamics capital structure: evidence from Vietnam," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    18. Nivorozhkin, Eugene, 2005. "Financing choices of firms in EU accession countries," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 138-169, June.
    19. Quang Trinh, Vu & Elnahass, Marwa & Duong Cao, Ngan, 2021. "The value relevance of bank cash Holdings: The moderating effect of board busyness," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    20. Pravish Kumar Nunkoo & Agyenim Boateng, 2010. "The empirical determinants of target capital structure and adjustment to long-run target: evidence from Canadian firms," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(10), pages 983-990.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    University finances; Higher education institutions; Indebtedness; Vice-chancellors;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

    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:reveco:v:82:y:2022:i:c:p:771-783. 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/620165 .

    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.