IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bol/bodewp/422.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is financial leverage mean-reverting? Unit root tests and corporate financing models

Author

Listed:
  • M. E. Bontempi
  • R. Golinelli

Abstract

In this paper we use the unit root test at both individual company (Dickey-Fuller) and panel (Im-Pesaran-Shin) level, in order to provide some quantitative evidence of the univariate behaviour of Italian companies debt-ratio. If it is mean-reverting, then at least a share of companies are going to behave according to the trade-off model, whereas if it is non-stationary, then companies may behave according to pecking order theory. Individual company test results support the pecking order theory in the case of more than 80% of firms, while the panel test rejects the unit root null. These contradictory results can be explained by the heterogeneity of the firms which tends to characterise the entire panel. For this reason, we selected a number of sub-samples in which companies are supposed to follow either the pure trade-off or the pure pecking order model of behaviour. Results confirm that: a) heterogeneity may lead to a false rejection of the pecking order theory in panel unit root tests; b) both trade off and pecking order theories contribute towards explaining the financial behaviour of Italian companies; c) the testing procedure we propose has the power to reject the pure pecking order model under the null hypothesis, but not the pure trade-off model.

Suggested Citation

  • M. E. Bontempi & R. Golinelli, 2001. "Is financial leverage mean-reverting? Unit root tests and corporate financing models," Working Papers 422, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    • Handle: RePEc:bol:bodewp:422
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://amsacta.unibo.it/4876/1/422.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Diamond, Douglas W, 1991. "Monitoring and Reputation: The Choice between Bank Loans and Directly Placed Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(4), pages 689-721, August.
    3. Kaddour Hadri, 2000. "Testing for stationarity in heterogeneous panel data," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 3(2), pages 148-161.
    4. Frankel, Jeffrey A. & Rose, Andrew K., 1996. "A panel project on purchasing power parity: Mean reversion within and between countries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1-2), pages 209-224, February.
    5. Anindya Banerjee & Massimiliano Marcellino & Chiara Osbat, 2005. "Testing for PPP: Should we use panel methods?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 77-91, January.
    6. Maria Elena Bontempi, 2002. "The dynamic specification of the modified pecking order theory: Its relevance to Italy," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 1-22.
    7. Hakkio, Craig S., 1984. "A re-examination of purchasing power parity : A multi-country and multi-period study," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3-4), pages 265-277, November.
    8. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
    9. Castanias, Richard, 1983. "Bankruptcy Risk and Optimal Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 38(5), pages 1617-1635, December.
    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. Arturo Capasso & Carmen Gallucci & Matteo Rossi, 2015. "Standing the test of time. Does firm performance improve with age? An analysis of the wine industry," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(7), pages 1037-1053, October.
    2. Giorgio Canarella & Mahmoud Nourayi & Michael J. Sullivan, 2014. "An alternative test of the trade-off theory of capital structure," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 8(4), December.
    3. Ajid ur Rehman & Man Wang & Haoyang Yu, 2016. "Dynamics of financial leverage across firm life cycle in Chinese firms: an empirical investigation using dynamic panel data model," China Finance and Economic Review, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 1-22, December.
    4. Tanveer Ahsan & Muhammad Azeem Qureshi, 2017. "The impact of financial liberalization on capital structure adjustment in Pakistan: a doubly censored modelling," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(41), pages 4148-4160, September.
    5. Roberto Golinelli & Sergio Pastorello, 2002. "Modelling the demand for M3 in the Euro area," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(4), pages 371-401.

    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. Bontempi, Maria Elena & Bottazzi, Laura & Golinelli, Roberto, 2020. "A multilevel index of heterogeneous short-term and long-term debt dynamics," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    2. 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.
    3. ElBannan, Mona A., 2017. "Stock market liquidity, family ownership, and capital structure choices in an emerging country," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 201-231.
    4. Abrapuspa Ghani Talattov & Nur Azura Sanusi & Suhal Kusairi & Abu Hassan Shaari, 2016. "The Role Of Corporate Zakat On Optimal Capital Structure Policy: Evidence From Malaysian Firms," Journal of Islamic Monetary Economics and Finance, Bank Indonesia, vol. 1(2), pages 259-292, February.
    5. John K. Wald, 1999. "How Firm Characteristics Affect Capital Structure: An International Comparison," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 22(2), pages 161-187, June.
    6. 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.
    7. Showalter, Dean, 1999. "Strategic debt: evidence in manufacturing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 319-333, April.
    8. T. Pham & D. Chow, 1989. "Some Estimates of Direct and Indirect Bankruptcy Costs in Australia: September 1978–May 1983," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 14(1), pages 75-95, June.
    9. Rashid, Abdul, 2013. "Risks and financing decisions in the energy sector: An empirical investigation using firm-level data," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 792-799.
    10. Syed A. Basher & Josep Lluís Carrion-i-Silvestre, 2007. "Another Look at the Null of Stationary RealExchange Rates. Panel Data with Structural Breaks and Cross-section Dependence," IREA Working Papers 200710, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised May 2007.
    11. Khaled Ba-Abbad & Nurwati Ashikkin Ahmad-Zaluki, 2012. "The Determinants of Capital Structure of Qatari Listed Companies," International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, vol. 2(2), pages 93-108, April.
    12. Singh, Manohar & Davidson, Wallace III & Suchard, Jo-Ann, 2003. "Corporate diversification strategies and capital structure," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 147-167.
    13. Maria Psillaki & Nikolaos Daskalakis, 2009. "Are the determinants of capital structure country or firm specific?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 319-333, October.
    14. bag, DINABANDHU, 2013. "Market Leverage Of Real Estate Firms In India: Empirical Study," OSF Preprints 3d7v4, Center for Open Science.
    15. Murat Kizildag & Ozgur Ozdemir, 2017. "Underlying factors of ups and downs in financial leverage overtime," Tourism Economics, , vol. 23(6), pages 1321-1342, September.
    16. Kimmo Virolainen, 1991. "Corporate tax exhaustion and financial policy : evidence on Finnish data," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 130-141, Autumn.
    17. Maria Elena Bontempi & Laura Bottazzi & Roberto Golinelli, 2015. "ynamic corporate capital structure behavior:empirical assessment in the light of heterogeneity and non stationarity," Working Papers 537, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    18. Silvia Magri, 2006. "Debt maturity of Italian firms," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 574, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    19. Maria Elena Bontempi & Roberto Golinelli, 2012. "The effect of neglecting the slope parameters’ heterogeneity on dynamic models of corporate capital structure," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(11), pages 1733-1751, November.
    20. Martin Wagner, 2008. "On PPP, unit roots and panels," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 229-249, September.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bol:bodewp:422. 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: Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sebolit.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.