IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mof/journl/ppr019a.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why Did the Debt Maturity of the Japanese Firms Get Longer H: A Preliminary Investigation

Author

Listed:
  • Tokuo Iwaisako

    (Professor, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University)

Abstract

As Japanese firms have reduced the proportion of debts in their capital structures, they have also increased their debt maturities. Since the shorter debt maturity is more costly for the firms of poor performance, it is argued that the maturity length plays the role of signal as the theoretical model of Flannery (1986) and Diamond (1991, 1993) suggest. Using Financial Statements Statistics of Corporations by Industry (FSSCI) data, I examine if the story that both total amount of debt and the debt maturity choice serve as signaling devices of borrower firms, an extension of the signaling model of the choice of debt maturity. At least for the non-manufacturing industry sample, it is confirmed that there is a clear correlation between corporate performance and the reduction of corporate borrowings. On the other hand, when the growth rates of the total debt are at the similar level, the industries that have better performance measured by ROA are more prone to increase or less aggressive to reduce the short-term borrowings. The result of the empirical analyses is consistent with the static model of the debt maturity choice by Flannery=Diamond, when we look at the relationship between the growth rate of the short/long-term debt and ROA alone. However, when the growth rate of total debt is taken into account, significant parts of the variations in the growth rates of short-term and long-term debts remain unexplained.

Suggested Citation

  • Tokuo Iwaisako, 2012. "Why Did the Debt Maturity of the Japanese Firms Get Longer H: A Preliminary Investigation," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 8(5), pages 563-580, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:mof:journl:ppr019a
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://warp.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/10248500/www.mof.go.jp/english/pri/publication/pp_review/ppr019/ppr019a.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diamond, Douglas W., 1993. "Seniority and maturity of debt contracts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 341-368, June.
    2. Yoshiro Miwa, 2011. "A Study of Financing Behavior of Japanese Firms with Firm-Level Data from Corporate Enterprise Quarterly Statistics - 1994~2009: Introduction and Summary," CARF F-Series CARF-F-241, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    3. Douglas W. Diamond, 1991. "Debt Maturity Structure and Liquidity Risk," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(3), pages 709-737.
    4. Takeo Hoshi & Anil Kashyap, 2004. "Corporate Financing and Governance in Japan: The Road to the Future," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262582481, April.
    5. Flannery, Mark J, 1986. "Asymmetric Information and Risky Debt Maturity Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(1), pages 19-37, March.
    6. Cai, Jun & Cheung, Yan-Leung & Goyal, Vidhan K., 1999. "Bank monitoring and the maturity structure of Japanese corporate debt issues," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 7(3-4), pages 229-249, August.
    7. Fukuda, Shin-ichi & Cong, Ji, 1996. "Asymmetric Information, Agency Problems, and Bank Loan Maturity in Japan," Economic Review, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 47(3), pages 204-216, July.
    8. Iwaisako, Tokuo, 2010. "Aggregate Corporate Saving and Recent Changes in Capital Structures of Japanese Firms," Economic Review, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 61(1), pages 18-32, January.
    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. Kalu Ojah & Justo Manrique, 2005. "Determinants of corporate debt structure in a privately dominated debt market: a study of the Spanish capital market," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(7), pages 455-468.
    2. Dries Heyman & Marc Deloof & Hubert Ooghe, 2008. "The Financial Structure of Private Held Belgian Firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 301-313, March.
    3. D. Heyman & M. Deloof & H. Ooghe, 2003. "The Debt-Maturity Structure of Small Firms in a Creditor-Oriented Environment," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 03/197, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    4. Shang, Chenguang, 2021. "Dare to play with fire? Managerial ability and the use of short-term debt," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    5. Dong Chen & Yanmin Gao & Mayank Kaul & Charles Ka Yui Leung & Desmond Tsang, 2016. "The Role of Sponsors and External Management on the Capital Structure of Asian-Pacific REITs: The Case of Australia, Japan, and Singapore," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 19(2), pages 197-221.
    6. Cai, Jun & Cheung, Yan-Leung & Goyal, Vidhan K., 1999. "Bank monitoring and the maturity structure of Japanese corporate debt issues," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 7(3-4), pages 229-249, August.
    7. Maria-Teresa Marchica, "undated". "Debt Maturity and the Characteristics of Ownership Structure: An Empirical Investigation of UK Firms," Discussion Papers 05/29, Department of Economics, University of York.
    8. Lianet Farfán Pérez & Jorge O. Moreno & Maria de las Mercedes Adamuz, 2022. "Madurez de la deuda corporativa como variable de tiempo: evidencia de las empresas públicas de México," Remef - Revista Mexicana de Economía y Finanzas Nueva Época REMEF (The Mexican Journal of Economics and Finance), Instituto Mexicano de Ejecutivos de Finanzas, IMEF, vol. 17(3), pages 1-34, Julio - S.
    9. Iwaisako, Tokuo & 祝迫, 得夫 & Fukuoka, Chiaki & Kanou, Takefumi, 2013. "Debt Restructuring Of Japanese Corporations: Efficiency Of Factor Allocations And The Debt-Labor Complementarity," Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 54(1), pages 119-135, June.
    10. Maria do Rosario Correia & Scott C. Linn & Andrew Marshall, 2004. "An Empirical Investigation of Debt Contract Design: The Determinants of the Choice of Debt Terms in Eurobond Issues," FEP Working Papers 148, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    11. Steven A. Dennis & Ian G. Sharpe, 2005. "Firm Size Dependence in the Determinants of Bank Term Loan Maturity," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1-2), pages 31-64.
    12. Chodorow-Reich, Gabriel & Darmouni, Olivier & Luck, Stephan & Plosser, Matthew, 2022. "Bank liquidity provision across the firm size distribution," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 908-932.
    13. Choi, Jaewon & Hackbarth, Dirk & Zechner, Josef, 2021. "Granularity of Corporate Debt," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 1127-1162, June.
    14. Gao, Wenlian & Zhu, Feifei, 2015. "Information asymmetry and capital structure around the world," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 131-159.
    15. Gozzi, Juan Carlos & Levine, Ross & Martinez Peria, Maria Soledad & Schmukler, Sergio L., 2015. "How firms use corporate bond markets under financial globalization," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 532-551.
    16. Christopher Gan & Yuan Zhang & Zhaohua Li & David A. Cohen, 2014. "The evolution of China’s banking system: bank loan announcements 1996–2009," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 54(1), pages 165-188, March.
    17. Tasic, Nikola & Valev, Neven, 2010. "The provision of long-term financing in the transition economies," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 160-172, June.
    18. Dudley, Evan & Yin, Qie Ellie, 2018. "Financial distress, refinancing, and debt structure," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 185-207.
    19. João Pinto & Mário Coutinho dos Santos, 2014. "Corporate Financing Choices after the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 03, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    20. Martin Oehmke & Hongda Zhong & Chong Huang, 2017. "A Theory of Multi-Period Debt Structure," 2017 Meeting Papers 1645, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    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:mof:journl:ppr019a. 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: Policy Research Institute (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/prigvjp.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.