The determinants of corporate debt maturity structure : Some panel data results

Abstract EN

This paper empirically examines the determinant of corporate debt maturity structure for 243 industrial firms reported in NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ for the period 1989-2003.

The Housman's specification test is used to examine the fixed and random effects in the panel data.

We find strong evidence supporting the contracting cost-theory that smaller firms with higher business risk and firms with more growth options in their investment opportunity sets are more likely to issue short-term debt.

Also we strongly reject the tax benefit and liquidity & risk hypotheses, none of the parameters under the random regression are significant.