Corporate Policy and Capital Structure Decisions: Empirical Evidence from Non- Financial Sectors of Pakistan

Abstract

Capital structure is expressed as the mixture of long-term debt and equity that a company uses in its financing composition. The importance of long-term financing in any business cannot be misjudged because it identifies the choice of optimal financing mix for the long-run survival of the business. The basic purpose of this study is to identify the behavior of financing composition through main corporate financial decisions in the non-financial sector of Pakistan. Data has been taken for 52 non-financial companies for 2015-2020. Outcomes of the study have been retrieved through OLS, Fixed Effect, Random Effect Model and Housman Test by using Views software. The main corporate financial policies regarding leverage decisions include a firm’s profitability, earning volatility, firm size, non-debt tax shield, and liquidity. Results identified that earning volatility, liquidity and profitability of the firm have a negative but significantly related to leverage; on the other hand,the study denotes that assets tangibility, not debt tax shield, firm size positively related to leverage. However as per fixed effect model earning volatility, liquidity and profitability has negative significant impact on leverage whereas, assets tangibility and firm size has positive significant impact on leverage. It is concluded that earning validity,liquidity and profitability are negative determinants of the firm’s leverage. Whereas, assets tangibility and firm size are the positive determinants of the leverage. The corporate policy regarding these determinants should be well recognized while designing the capital structure of the organization.