0000000000347414
AUTHOR
José López-gracia
An agency approach to debt maturity of unlisted and listed firms in the European setting
Abstract This study analyses the debt maturity of two groups of companies – unlisted and listed – throughout the period 2005–2013. The research takes an agency costs approach to explore the determinants of firms' debt maturity structure for a set of five countries, chosen for being representative of the European Union (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom). Agency costs, as well as institutional and macroeconomic factors, turn out to be decisive in explaining firms’ financial policies regarding debt maturity, during the economic crisis that started in 2007–2008. Our findings indicate that contracting costs had a greater impact on unlisted firms during the post-crisis subperi…
Financial Structure of the Family Business: Evidence From a Group of Small Spanish Firms
This article presents empirical evidence on the determinants of the financial behavior of small family businesses and their differences from nonfamily small businesses. Taking into account two consolidated financial approaches, (1) the trade-off theory and (2) the pecking order theory, several hypotheses on the financial behavior of both groups of firms have been tested. By estimating these models through panel data methodology, using a sample of Spanish family businesses together with another control group of nonfamily businesses, we have obtained results confirming that a business's family nature does lead it to employ financial policy different from the rest of businesses. Furthermore, …
Tax effect on Spanish SME optimum debt maturity structure
Abstract This paper analyzes the influence of the tax effect on small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) debt maturity structure. This study builds a dynamic adjustment model which endogenizes optimum structure and assumes the existence of adjustment costs. Using Spanish data, the model is estimated using a system-GMM regression to a complete panel (11,028 firms) covering 1997–2004. SMEs adjust to their target at a speed of about 37% annually, the equivalent of employing about 20 months to cover only half of the existing gap. This rate is lower than those reported in other similar papers studying large companies with publicly tradable equity.
Financial constraints and cash–cash flow sensitivity
This article explores the cash–cash flow relationship by comparing financially constrained and financially unconstrained companies. Unlike previous research, we test the sensitivity of cash to cash flow by considering unlisted firms as constrained and listed firms as unconstrained. Our empirical evidence is based on findings from Spanish firms and is consistent with the core rationale that unlisted firms face more difficulties than their listed counterparts when looking for funding from external markets. As a result, unlisted firms tend to hoard significant amounts of cash out of the generated cash flow, while listed firms do not. Our findings are robust to a number of additional empirical …
Capital Structure and Sensitivity in SME Definition: A Panel Data Investigation
We provide an empirical examination of the pecking order theory on capital structure in the field of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). We mainly investigate if the results are sensitive to different definitions commonly used for these types of companies. Our evidence offers strong support for the growth opportunities and cash flow hypotheses. Firms that have many growth opportunities and small cash flows clearly show more debt in their capital structure. Moreover, results do not change when different SME definitions or sample sizes are used.
New Evidence of the Tax Effect on SME Optimum Debt Maturity Structure
This paper analyzes the influence the tax effect has on optimum SME debt maturity structure. Unlike previous research, this study builds a dynamic adjustment model which endogenizes optimum structure and assumes the existence of adjustment costs. The model is then estimated by applying a system-GMM regression to a complete data panel (12,250 firms) covering the period dating from 1997 to 2004. SMEs adjust to their target at a speed of 35%, which is the equivalent of employing around 20 months to cover only half of the existing gap. This rate is lower than those obtained in other similar papers studying large companies with publicly tradeable equity.
Sensitivity of external resources to cash flow under financial constraints
Abstract This paper explores the external financing–cash flow relationship in capital structure theory by comparing unlisted (financially constrained) and listed (financially unconstrained) companies. We postulate that investment is determined endogenously in the case of unlisted firms, as they are strongly dependent on internally generated funds (cash flow). Consequently, unlisted firms invest their cash flow in profitable projects, using any residual cash flow to increase their holdings of safe assets. In turn, listed companies determine their investment exogenously and may reduce leverage if they raise an excess of cash flow. As a result, listed companies would react more negatively to s…
On the Relevance of Agency Conflicts in SME Debt Maturity Structure
Previous theoretical research asserts that an optimal policy of debt maturity structure mitigates the various agency conflicts that arise through debt contracts. We test this hypothesis on Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), which are very sensitive to agency problems. Such problems mainly arise between owners and debt providers, due to SMEs recording high growth and having few fixed assets and informational asymmetry. We provide evidence on the relevant effect of underinvestment, asset substitution, and overinvestment problems on SME debt structure. Results appear to be robust to both the endogeneity problem of explanatory variables and the censored dependent variable.
Corporate Governance and Capital Structure: A Spanish Study
This study explores the relationship between capital structure and corporate governance using a data panel of Spanish listed firms over the period 2005 to 2011. Specifically, two notable conflicts in the area of corporate governance have been analysed: (i) managerial ownership; and (ii) controlling shareholders ownership. Our findings confirm a non-monotonic relationship between both managerial ownership and ownership concentration, and capital structure. In order to mitigate endogeneity concerns, a number of robustness tests have been performed. The empirical evidence obtained yields a number of implications such as the shareholders' need to monitor entrenched managers, the insufficient pr…