Leverage Adjustment Research Articles

Analyst Cliques Coverage and the Speed of Leverage Adjustment: Evidence from China

Analyst Cliques Coverage and the Speed of Leverage Adjustment: Evidence from China

Bank Fintech and firm leverage adjustment speed: Evidence from China

The recent development of Fintech has greatly changed the operation and loan management of commercial banks, which has had a significant impact on firm financing and governance. This paper analyzes the impact of the rising use of bank Fintech on leverage adjustment speed. The results show that bank Fintech accelerates firm leverage adjustment speed. This effect is more pronounced for under-leveraged firms, high-growth firms, non-state-owned firms and firms located in regions with more developed institutions. Transmission channel tests show that bank Fintech can accelerate leverage adjustment speed by alleviating firm-level financial constraints and agency problems. Finally, bank Fintech improves firm performance by accelerating leverage adjustment speed. Our work extends the literature on Fintech and dynamic trade-off theory and has implications for banking regulations and Fintech development.

COVID-19 exposure, financial flexibility, and corporate leverage adjustment

This study examines how firm-level exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic affects the speed of leverage adjustment among 3260 US-listed firms from 2019q1 to 2022q1. Using a novel measure of COVID-19 exposure, we find that higher exposure significantly reduces the speed at which firms adjust their leverage towards target levels. This effect is more pronounced for financially constrained firms and those operating in competitive markets. We further show that COVID-19 exposure adversely impacts corporate liquidity, default risk, and financial flexibility. Our findings highlight the role of exogenous shocks in shaping corporate financing decisions.

Major Customers and the Speed of Leverage Adjustments

Purpose: This study investigates how major customers influence the speed of adjustment (SOA) in a firm's capital structure, specifically examining the effects of governmental versus non-governmental major customers.Study design/methodology/approach: The study employs Blundell and Bond’s (1998) GMM model to estimate SOA. Robustness methods include fixed effects, two-stage least squares (2SLS), propensity score matching (PSM), and the augmented doubly censored Tobit (DPF estimator).Sample and data: The sample consists of 186,240 firm-year observations from Compustat North America annual files and Compustat historical segment files, spanning 1978 to 2013. Firms in the utility and financial sectors are excluded.Results: Findings indicate that major customers significantly influence SOA by reducing market uncertainty through certifications. Firms with major customers have a higher SOA, with governmental customers exhibiting an even higher SOA than non-governmental ones. Results are consistent across various models and settings.Originality/value: This study uniquely identifies major customers as critical determinants of SOA, highlighting the heterogeneities in firms' SOA. It stresses the importance of considering customer type in financial strategies, differentiating between governmental and non-governmental impacts. These findings offer valuable insights for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners.Research limitations/implications: Focusing on publicly listed U.S. firms limits generalization. Future research should extend the analysis to other regions and recent periods. The findings provide insights for supplier firms in strategizing financial decisions and managing relationships with major customers. We emphasize the significant role of major customers in financial strategies, advocating for more detailed disclosure policies in the U.S. and globally to enhance transparency and market efficiency.

CAN CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY PERFORMANCE (CSP) OVERCOME INDONESIA'S CORPORATE DEBT PROBLEMS?

Based on IMF publications (2022), Indonesian companies have a risky debt level that may cause bankruptcy, so companies are required to make leverage adjustments to return the debt to its optimal level. In recent years, corporate sustainability performance (CSP) practices have been proven to improve performance and overcome financial problems such as debt by integrating sustainability aspects into business processes. Based on stakeholder theory and trade-off theory, this study aims to examine the effect of CSP on leverage adjustment and the role of competitive advantage, equity mispricing, profitability, and firm size in moderating this relationship. This study used a sample of 40 listed companies that registered on the Indonesia Stock Exchange and implemented CSP from 2019 to 2022. By using multiple linear regression analysis and moderated regression analysis, this study shows that companies with CSP can increase company leverage adjustments. Meanwhile, company characteristics such as equity mispricing and company size have proven to strengthen this relationship, but competitive advantage and profitability do not influence it. The results of this study provide theoretical and practical benefits by enhancing knowledge about CSP and leverage adjustments, as well as enabling managerial and regulatory parties to make the right decisions.

An analysis of capital structure heterogeneity for manufacturing and service sector firms

PurposeWe aim to analyze the capital structure heterogeneity for manufacturing and service sector firms. Additionally, we analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the leverage adjustments of corporate firms.Design/methodology/approachThis study applies the two-step system generalized method of moments (system-GMM) and panel data of 1,115 manufacturing and 482 service sector firms listed with the Bombay Stock Exchange (S&P BSE) from 2010 to 2023. We developed and analyzed three models. Model 1 analyzes the leverage determinants and speed of adjustment (SOA) for the manufacturing and service sectors. Model 2 evaluates the leverage SOA for various sub-sectors, and Model 3 analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the leverage SOA.FindingsThis study suggests the three following. First, the direction of leverage determinants suggests that manufacturing firms are highly tangible. In contrast, service sector firms are high-growth firms and recorded a higher SOA (12.01%) than manufacturing (9.09%). Second, analyzing the leverage heterogeneity, we found that SOA varies across the sub-sectors. For manufacturing, food and beverage sub-sector recorded the highest SOA (12.58%), while consumer durables reported the lowest (6.38%). Communication recorded the highest (24.15%) for services, while industrial services recorded the lowest (11.18%). Third, firms across sectors and sub-sectors increased their SOA during COVID-19 pandemic.Research limitations/implicationsThis in-depth analysis of leverage heterogeneity for different sectors and subsectors will assist policymakers, corporate managers and other stakeholders in making agile financial decisions.Originality/valueThe analysis of leverage heterogeneity for the manufacturing and service sector from the emerging Indian economy marks a novel contribution to existing literature.

Management control systems, business financial literacy and financial leverage in business-incubated start-ups

Entrepreneurs manage the capital structure of their start-ups to align the assumption of financial risk with their risk appetite. We focus on the ways in which management control systems (MCS), categorized as financial and non-financial MCS, serve as determinants of financial leverage in start-ups. Of particular interest is the influence of entrepreneurs' financial literacy on this relationship. We test these associations on a sample of business-incubated start-ups by combining survey and archival data. Our results show that financial MCS are negatively associated with financial leverage, unlike non-financial MCS, which are positively related. Entrepreneurs’ financial literacy mitigates the impact of these associations. Overall, our aim is to shed light on how start-ups navigate the trade-off between taking risks and controlling their operations. In addition, we add to the growing literature on the adjustment of financial leverage and the role of MCS and financial literacy in managing such leverage.

A critical assessment of the partial leverage adjustment model: Target-overshooting behavior

More than 30 percent of Compustat firms overshoot target leverage within one to two years, contrary to the partial leverage adjustment model’s (PLAM) central tenet of incremental adjustments year by year. Because overshooting involves large adjustments, the presence of overshooting firms can skew researchers’ inferences drawn from the PLAM. This study reveals that if we remove overshooting firms from the dataset, the estimated leverage-adjustment speed is much lower and, more importantly, the average firm stops moving toward the target well before the halfway point. Ironically, the conclusion of firms’ partial and steady movements toward target leverage in the PLAM research looks like a statistical artifact arising from the preponderance of overshooting.

Fast or slow: Unveiling the speed of market leverage adjustment in China

Fast or slow: Unveiling the speed of market leverage adjustment in China

Testing static and dynamic leverage models: A standardized leverage measure approach

This paper proposes and validates a new measure of capital structure by normalizing firms’ leverage ratios by their business risks, assuming asset values follow a geometric Brownian motion. We empirically test the new measure with both static and dynamic leverage models, and we find that the standardized leverage (SDL) ratio: 1) performs similarly to book leverage in static leverage regressions, and 2) presents a more realistic speed of adjustment (SOA) in dynamic leverage adjustment models. Within the framework of SDL, we also compute individual firms’ leverage adjustment speeds, which is shown to have significant predictive power regarding firms’ future capital structure adjustments. Overall, the empirical results suggest that the SDL exhibits strong candidacy to serve as a more reliable measure for firms’ real capital structure.

ESG and Leverage Adjustment: Based on Stakeholder Theory and Signaling Theory

Many of today's firms are suffering from leverage imbalance. A company's debt can negatively impact its performance when it deviates from its target leverage. Thus, this paper discusses adjusting the firm's capital structure to an optimal one. Combining stakeholder theory and signaling theory, this paper discusses how and under what circumstances ESG may have an impact on capital structure, from which the paper proposes the following conjectures: whether ESG can have a significant impact on a firm's target leverage; how ESG can affect a firm's capital structure when the firm has an asymmetry of information; and whether ESG can be tailored to economic environments that can have an impact on a firm's capital structure changes have an effect. After the inference of this paper, ESG can effectively influence firms' capital structure and accelerate the adjustment speed of firms' leverage to target leverage under the state of firms' information transparency. ESG will be more effective in regulating firms' target leverage in the downturn of the economic environment. The analytical framework of this paper may also be effectively applied to other research directions, such as corporate investment decisions, cash holdings, and dividend policies.

Negative Media Tone and Leverage Adjustments

This paper examines how negative publicity influences firms’ capital structure decision. We find that firms exhibit faster adjustment of capital structure toward the target level after more negative media coverage, advocating the monitoring role of negative media sentiment on corporate behaviors. Further, our finding is significantly stronger for non-chaebol firms. Additional analyses show that the monitoring role is stronger when firms are more scrutinized by outsiders and have better corporate governance. Overall, this paper shows evidence that negative media sentiment could play an effective role in monitoring firms’ capital structure and correcting their inefficiencies.

Liquidity and dynamic leverage: the moderating impacts of leverage deviation and target instability

PurposeWe explore the impact of equity liquidity on a firm’s dynamic leverage adjustments and the moderating impacts of leverage deviation and target instability on the link between equity liquidity and dynamic leverage in the UK market.Design/methodology/approachIn applying the two-step system GMM, we estimate our model by exploring suitable instruments for the dynamic variable(s), i.e. lagged values of the dynamic term(s).FindingsOur analyses document that a firm’s equity liquidity has a positive impact on the speed of adjustment (SOA) of its leverage ratio back to the target ratio in the UK market. We also demonstrate that the positive relationship between liquidity and SOA is more pronounced for firms whose current position is relatively close to their target leverage ratio and whose target ratio is relatively stable.Practical implicationsThis study provides important implications for both firms’ managers and investors. Particularly, firms’ managers who wish to increase the leverage SOA to enhance firms’ value need to give great attention to their equity liquidity. Investors who want to evaluate firms’ performance could also consider their equity liquidity and leverage SOA.Originality/valueWe are the first to enrich the literature on leverage adjustments by identifying equity liquidity as a new determinant of SOA in a single developed country with many differences in the structure and development of capital markets, ownership concentration and institutional characteristics. We also provide new empirical evidence of the joint effect of equity liquidity, leverage deviation and target instability on leverage SOA.

Corporate leverage and leverage speed of adjustment: Does environmental policy stringency matter?

This study examines the effects of environmental policy stringency on corporate leverage and speed of adjustment across 39 countries from 1994 to 2020. The primary empirical findings illustrate that environmental policy stringency is negatively related to leverage and leverage adjustment speed. Such effects are prominent for firms with financial constraints, in countries with significant climate-risk exposure and corruption, or in Asia. Based on our main findings, when policymakers implement environmental policies, corporate decisions regarding leverage and debt financing should be taken into account, as these policies can discourage firms from increasing leverage and slow down the speed of adjustment toward optimal leverage.

Supplier concentration and the speed of capital structure adjustment

Using a large sample of A-share Chinese firms from 2012 to 2019, we show a positive relationship between supplier concentration and leverage adjustment speed. This positive relationship is unidirectional and primarily concentrated among over-leveraged firms rather than among under-leveraged ones. Moreover, the effect of supplier concentration is more pronounced in firms with greater bargaining power over suppliers. A plausible channel is the monitoring role imposed by suppliers, which mitigates the firm’s agency conflicts by reducing (1) information asymmetry between informed managers and uninformed market participants and (2) management opportunism and slacking. Further, we show that firms with higher supplier concentrations are more active in the security market due to having lower agency costs. Our findings demonstrate the crucial role of customer–supplier relationships in a firm’s capital structure dynamics.

Leverage adjustment analytics: effect of Covid-19 crisis on financial adjustments of Indian firms

Leverage adjustment analytics: effect of Covid-19 crisis on financial adjustments of Indian firms

Dynamics of carbon risk, cost of debt and leverage adjustments

We evaluate the effects of carbon risk on the speed at which corporations adjust their leverage for the period 2006–2020. Primarily we address the question: Does national carbon risk impact firm-level speed of adjustment (SOA)? To address the main question, our study further classifies the companies in the sample based on borrowing costs and carbon risk. By doing so, we report on how borrowing costs may influence the company's conduct. Our research focuses on the energy sector, which is an important sector for emitting carbon. Our study uses physical climate risk changes as a proxy for carbon risk, and the second proxy for carbon risk is obtained by scaling the country's carbon emissions to the company level. We find that the carbon risk is positively related to the speed of adjustment; specifically, the firms with low cost of borrowing show a faster speed of adjustment toward the target than those whose cost of borrowing is higher. However, businesses with high (low) expenses and high carbon risk do not see a reason to change their leverage. In addition, we also examine the interaction effects of earnings yield, transaction contract cost, enforcement cost on carbon risk, and the speed of leverage adjustment. Our results confirm that the effects of transaction contract costs and enforcement costs are significant. The post-Paris Agreement period reveals a strong positive relationship between carbon risk and leverage SOA.

The Effect of Equity Mispricing on the Relationship of Corporate Sustainability Performance and Leverage Adjustments

The Effect of Equity Mispricing on the Relationship of Corporate Sustainability Performance and Leverage Adjustments

Corporate Governance, Internal Control and Leverage: Are We There Yet?

Corporate governance serves as a robust internal control mechanism. Literature has established that strong corporate governance improves oversight, accountability, and transparency. In the governance and leverage literature, agency theory and pecking order theory suggest that strong governance mechanisms reduce leverage, as stronger governance provides good internal control to check managerial opportunistic behaviors, preventing overinvestment and other entrenchment practices through excessive borrowing. However, leverage may itself act as an external disciplinary mechanism, thereby substituting the need for strong internal governance. Almost two decades of studies exist investigating the relationship between corporate governance and leverage without a clear direction. Furthermore, we investigate the relationship between corporate governance and the speed of leverage adjustment, revealing a consensus among many studies that firms subject to strong governance adjust their leverage more expeditiously than those under weak governance. Our current study synthesizes prior research and points toward the direction of improvement.

Reassessing theories of capital structure: Empirical insights from companies listed in Vietnam

AbstractOver the past decade, the Vietnamese capital market has undergone a remarkable transformation, with a significant focus on its stock market that has displayed substantial expansion since 2012. This research delves into the impact of this market progression on the choices pertaining to capital structure made by companies listed in Vietnam. By analyzing a range of trade‐off and pecking order models and amalgamating them into a unified regression framework, we gauge their capacity to elucidate these decisions. Our study outcomes unveil that the trade‐off theory offers a more robust rationale for the capital structure determinations of Vietnamese companies, particularly during the post‐2012 period. Furthermore, we observe a notable increase in the pace of leverage adjustments made by Vietnamese companies post‐2012. Subsequent analysis indicates that this acceleration is primarily driven by overleveraged firms, as opposed to underleveraged ones. This study contributes valuable insights into the relationship between capital market development and capital structure choices within the Vietnamese context. It offers important implications for policymakers, investors, and corporate decision‐makers seeking to better understand and navigate the evolving dynamics of the Vietnamese capital market.