IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/7617.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Excess Leverage and Productivity Growth in Emerging Economies: Is There A Threshold Effect?

Author

Listed:
  • Coricelli, Fabrizio
  • ,
  • Pal, Sarmistha
  • Roland, Isabelle

Abstract

This paper studies the relationship between leverage and growth, focusing on a large sample of firms in emerging economies of central and eastern Europe (CEE). Contrary to the general wisdom, we find that deviation from optimal leverage, especially excess leverage, is common among firms in many CEE countries. Using firm-level panel data, the paper provides support to the hypothesis that leverage positively affects productivity growth but only below an endogenously determined threshold level.

Suggested Citation

  • Coricelli, Fabrizio & , & Pal, Sarmistha & Roland, Isabelle, 2009. "Excess Leverage and Productivity Growth in Emerging Economies: Is There A Threshold Effect?," CEPR Discussion Papers 7617, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7617
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP7617
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    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. 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.
    3. Goldstein, Robert & Ju, Nengjiu & Leland, Hayne, 2001. "An EBIT-Based Model of Dynamic Capital Structure," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(4), pages 483-512, October.
    4. Rachel Griffith, 1999. "Using the ARD establishment level data to look at foreign ownership and productivity in the UK," IFS Working Papers W99/06, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    5. Carmen M. Reinhart & Graciela L. Kaminsky, 1999. "The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance-of-Payments Problems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 473-500, June.
    6. Murray Z. Frank & Vidhan K. Goyal, 2009. "Capital Structure Decisions: Which Factors Are Reliably Important?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 38(1), pages 1-37, March.
    7. Nigel Driffield & Sarmistha Pal, 2010. "Evolution of capital structure in east Asia—corporate inertia or endeavours?," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 173(1), pages 1-29, January.
    8. Carmen M. Reinhart & Graciela L. Kaminsky, 1999. "The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance-of-Payments Problems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 473-500, June.
    9. Griffith, Rachel, 1999. "Using the ARD Establishment Level Data to Look at Foreign Ownership and Productivity in the United Kingdom," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(456), pages 416-442, June.
    10. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2010. "Growth in a Time of Debt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 573-578, May.
    11. Evans, David S, 1987. "Tests of Alternative Theories of Firm Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(4), pages 657-674, August.
    12. Berger, Allen N. & DeYoung, Robert, 1997. "Problem loans and cost efficiency in commercial banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 849-870, June.
    13. Zvi Griliches, 1992. "Output Measurement in the Service Sectors," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gril92-1, June.
    14. Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Maksimovic, Vojislav, 1995. "Stock market development and firm financing choices," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1461, The World Bank.
    15. Flannery, Mark J. & Rangan, Kasturi P., 2006. "Partial adjustment toward target capital structures," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 469-506, March.
    16. Ben S. Bernanke & Mark Gertler, 1995. "Inside the Black Box: The Credit Channel of Monetary Policy Transmission," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 27-48, Fall.
    17. Bonin, John P. & Hasan, Iftekhar & Wachtel, Paul, 2005. "Privatization matters: Bank efficiency in transition countries," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(8-9), pages 2155-2178, August.
    18. Bruce E. Hansen, 2000. "Sample Splitting and Threshold Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(3), pages 575-604, May.
    19. Kenneth Rogoff, 1999. "International Institutions for Reducing Global Financial Instability," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 21-42, Fall.
    20. Alan Greenspan, 2002. "Federal Reserve Board's semiannual monetary policy report to the Congress: testimony before the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, February 27, 2002," Speech 4, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    21. 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.
    22. Lang, Larry & Ofek, Eli & Stulz, Rene M., 1996. "Leverage, investment, and firm growth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 3-29, January.
    23. Ilya A. Strebulaev, 2007. "Do Tests of Capital Structure Theory Mean What They Say?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1747-1787, August.
    24. Antoniou, Antonios & Guney, Yilmaz & Paudyal, Krishna, 2008. "The Determinants of Capital Structure: Capital Market-Oriented versus Bank-Oriented Institutions," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(1), pages 59-92, March.
    25. Allen N. Berger & David B. Humphrey, 1992. "Measurement and Efficiency Issues in Commercial Banking," NBER Chapters, in: Output Measurement in the Service Sectors, pages 245-300, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    26. Sourafel Girma, 2005. "Absorptive Capacity and Productivity Spillovers from FDI: A Threshold Regression Analysis," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 67(3), pages 281-306, June.
    27. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:6:p:2107-2137 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Olley, G Steven & Pakes, Ariel, 1996. "The Dynamics of Productivity in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(6), pages 1263-1297, November.
    29. Sudipto Sarkar & Fernando Zapatero, 2003. "The Trade-off Model with Mean Reverting Earnings: Theory and Empirical Tests," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(490), pages 834-860, October.
    30. repec:bla:jfinan:v:44:y:1989:i:1:p:19-40 is not listed on IDEAS
    31. Myers, Stewart C., 1984. "Capital structure puzzle," Working papers 1548-84., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    32. Faria, Andr & Mauro, Paolo, 2009. "Institutions and the external capital structure of countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 367-391, April.
    33. Beck, Thorsten & Asl Demirguc-Kunt & Maksimovic, Vojislav, 2002. "Financing patterns around the world : the role of institutions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2905, The World Bank.
    34. James Levinsohn & Amil Petrin, 2003. "Estimating Production Functions Using Inputs to Control for Unobservables," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 317-341.
    35. Ralph de Haas & Marga Peeters, 2006. "The dynamic adjustment towards target capital structures of firms in transition economies," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 14(1), pages 133-169, March.
    36. Stewart C. Myers, 1984. "Capital Structure Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 1393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    37. Hovakimian, Armen & Hovakimian, Gayane & Tehranian, Hassan, 2004. "Determinants of target capital structure: The case of dual debt and equity issues," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 517-540, March.
    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. Antoine Godin & Stephen Kinsella, 2012. "Leverage, liquidity and crisis: A simulation study," ASSRU Discussion Papers 1205, ASSRU - Algorithmic Social Science Research Unit.
    2. Paulo Matos & Pedro Neves, 2020. "The Determinants of Total Factor Productivity in the Portuguese Quaternary Sector," GEE Papers 0149, Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia, revised Apr 2020.
    3. Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem & Sorensen, Bent & Yesiltas, Sevcan, 2012. "Leverage across firms, banks, and countries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 284-298.
    4. Ms. Maria Gonzalez, 2012. "Nonfinancial Firms in Latin America: A Source of Vulnerability?," IMF Working Papers 2012/279, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Ms. Manuela Goretti & Mr. Marcos R Souto, 2013. "Macro-Financial Implications of Corporate (De)Leveraging in the Euro Area Periphery," IMF Working Papers 2013/154, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Piotr Boguszewski & Maria Lissowska, 2012. "Low Reliance on Credit Among Polish Firms: A Blessing in Disguise at a Time of Financial Crisis?," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 7-8, pages 1-25.
    7. International Monetary Fund, 2016. "Ireland: Selected Issues," IMF Staff Country Reports 2016/257, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Leandro Medina, 2012. "Spring Forward or Fall Back? The Post-Crisis Recovery of Firms," IMF Working Papers 2012/292, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Brown, Martin & Lane, Philip R., 2011. "Debt overhang in emerging Europe ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5784, The World Bank.
    10. Mari Avarmaa & Aaro Hazak & Kadri Männasoo, 2013. "Does leverage affect labour productivity? A comparative study of local and multinational companies of the Baltic countries," Journal of Business Economics and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(2), pages 252-275, April.
    11. Lawless, Martina & O’Connell, Brian & O’Toole, Conor, 2015. "SME recovery following a financial crisis: Does debt overhang matter?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 45-59.
    12. Falciola, Justine & Jansen, Marion & Rollo, Valentina, 2020. "Defining firm competitiveness: A multidimensional framework," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).

    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. Coricelli, Fabrizio & Driffield, Nigel & Pal, Sarmistha & Roland, Isabelle, 2012. "When does leverage hurt productivity growth? A firm-level analysis," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1674-1694.
    2. Elena Alexandra Nenu & Georgeta Vintilă & Ştefan Cristian Gherghina, 2018. "The Impact of Capital Structure on Risk and Firm Performance: Empirical Evidence for the Bucharest Stock Exchange Listed Companies," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-29, April.
    3. Dang, Viet Anh & Kim, Minjoo & Shin, Yongcheol, 2014. "Asymmetric adjustment toward optimal capital structure: Evidence from a crisis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 226-242.
    4. Mai, Nhat Chi, 2012. "Market timing, taxes and capital structure: evidence from Vietnam," OSF Preprints t3mvs, Center for Open Science.
    5. An, Zhe & Li, Donghui & Yu, Jin, 2015. "Firm crash risk, information environment, and speed of leverage adjustment," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 132-151.
    6. Dang, Viet Anh & Kim, Minjoo & Shin, Yongcheol, 2012. "Asymmetric capital structure adjustments: New evidence from dynamic panel threshold models," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 465-482.
    7. 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.
    8. Nigel Driffield & Sarmistha Pal, 2010. "Evolution of capital structure in east Asia—corporate inertia or endeavours?," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 173(1), pages 1-29, January.
    9. Mohamed, Hisham Hanifa & Masih, Mansur & Bacha, Obiyathulla I., 2015. "Why do issuers issue Sukuk or conventional bond? Evidence from Malaysian listed firms using partial adjustment models," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 233-252.
    10. Natalia Szomko, 2017. "The Importance of Estimation Method Choice for the Analysis of the Determinants of Capital Structure– An Example of Poland," World Journal of Applied Economics, WERI-World Economic Research Institute, vol. 3(1), pages 3-20, June.
    11. Biswajit Ghose & Kailash Chandra Kabra, 2019. "Capital Structure Dynamics and Financing Imbalance: Evidence from an Emerging Economy," Emerging Economy Studies, International Management Institute, vol. 5(2), pages 103-124, November.
    12. M. E. Bontempi & L. Bottazzi & R. Golinelli, 2015. "Dynamic corporate capital structure behavior: empirical assessment in the light of heterogeneity and non stationarity," Working Papers wp988, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    13. Amini, Shahram & Elmore, Ryan & Öztekin, Özde & Strauss, Jack, 2021. "Can machines learn capital structure dynamics?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    14. İbrahim Yarba & Z. Nuray Güner, 2020. "Leverage dynamics: Do financial development and government leverage matter? Evidence from a major developing economy," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(5), pages 2473-2507, November.
    15. Rubi Ahmad & Oyebola Fatima Etudaiye-Muhtar, 2017. "Dynamic Model of Optimal Capital Structure: Evidence from Nigerian Listed Firms," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 18(3), pages 590-604, June.
    16. Haque, Sharjil & Varghese, Richard, 2023. "Firms’ rollover risk, capital structure and unequal exposure to aggregate shocks," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    17. G. Oka Warmana & I. Ketut Rahyuda & Ida Bagus Anom Purbawangsa & Ni Luh Gede Sri Artini, 2020. "Investigating Capital Structure Speed of Adjustment (SOA) of Indonesian Companies for Corporate Value," Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, Springer;Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management, vol. 21(3), pages 215-231, September.
    18. 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).
    19. Cai, Jie & Zhang, Zhe, 2011. "Leverage change, debt overhang, and stock prices," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 391-402, June.
    20. Hanifa, Mohamed Hisham & Masih, Mansur & Bacha, Obiyathulla, 2014. "Testing Sukuk And Conventional Bond Offers Based On Corporate Financing Theories Using Partial Adjustment Models: Evidence From Malaysian Listed Firms," MPRA Paper 56953, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Excess leverage; Tfp growth; Threshold model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance

    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:cpr:ceprdp:7617. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.