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This study explores the relationship between corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disagreements and corporate debt maturity. By examining panel samples from Chinese non-financial listed companies covering 2007 to 2020, we find that ESG disagreements negatively influence corporate debt maturity. Even after conducting a series of robustness tests and addressing endogeneity concerns, the adverse effects of ESG disagreements persisted. A heterogeneity analysis shows that this negative impact is more significant for non-state-owned enterprises, small enterprises, enterprises with high capital intensity, enterprises with low analyst attention, and enterprises in high-tech industries. Through a mechanism analysis, we discovered that ESG disagreements can lead to information asymmetry and heightened default risk, subsequently affecting the maturity of corporate debt. Further analysis confirms that the negative impact of ESG on the debt structure inhibits long-term investment and exacerbates the mismatch between investment and financing terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study investigates the combined influence of corporate governance (CG) and debt maturity (DM) on the investment inefficiency among non-financial 506 NSE-listed firms in India between 2009 and 2022. Additionally, this study also investigates the moderating effect of short-term debt (STD) maturity concerning the relationship between CG and investment inefficiency. Design/methodology/approach: Utilizing the residuals extracted from the Biddle et al. (2009) investment model, three different forms of investment inefficiency (investment inefficiency, overinvestment and underinvestment) were measured. To measure the internal governance of firms, a new corporate governance index (CGI) was developed using 65 new governance stipulations, whereas STD was measured as short-term debt divided by total debt. Interaction effects between CG and DM were also estimated. Employing CGI and STD along with firm-specific control variables, many pooled regression models were estimated. Endogeneity issues were addressed through two-stage least squares. Robustness checks were also conducted using the two-step system GMM, alternative measures of dependent and independent variables. Findings: The findings demonstrate that higher CG and shortened DM increase investment efficiency. This evidence implies that firm-level governance and short-term debt reduce information asymmetry and increase management oversight. Additionally, the evidence suggested that shortened DM and CG complement one another to increase investment efficiency, suggesting companies that utilize STD to a greater (lesser) extent demonstrate a greater (lesser) impact of CG in reducing investment inefficiency. Practical implications: This work first advocates the establishment and implementation of robust corporate governance mechanisms to control agency conflicts, moral hazard, adverse selection and limit opportunistic behavior of managers for improving investment efficiency. Second, since interaction effects suggest a complementarity between CG and DM, it is advocated that STDs can be used to achieve optimal investment choices to control moral hazards and adverse selection and discourage suboptimal investment levels. Originality/value: This work provides new evidence concerning the effects of CG and DM on various forms of corporate investment efficiency (investment inefficiency, overinvestment and underinvestment, using alternate measures) in an emerging economy like India having a unique institutional framework and macroeconomic environment using a newly developed firm-specific CG index for a large sample of companies using recent data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to identify the factors that affect investment efficiency in the infrastructure, utilities, and transportation sectors during the 2018-2022 period. The background of this research shows that investment efficiency is important for economic growth, especially in the sector. The focus of this study is on independent variables, namely the quality of financial statements, debt deadlines, profitability performance, tax avoidance, and institutional ownership, as well as their impact on investment efficiency as dependent variables. The method used was data analysis with SPSS version 26, through purposive sampling, which resulted in 16 companies and 69 observation data after the removal of outliers. The results show that the quality of financial statements and profitability performance have a significant effect on investment efficiency, while debt deadlines, tax avoidance, and institutional ownership do not show a significant influence. In conclusion, the combination of variables analyzed contributes to investment efficiency, providing important implications for investors and company managers to pay attention to the quality of financial statements and profitability performance in improving investment efficiency in related sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This study explores the relationship between corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disagreements and corporate debt maturity. By examining panel samples from Chinese non-financial listed companies covering 2007 to 2020, we find that ESG disagreements negatively influence corporate debt maturity. Even after conducting a series of robustness tests and addressing endogeneity concerns, the adverse effects of ESG disagreements persisted. A heterogeneity analysis shows that this negative impact is more significant for non-state-owned enterprises, small enterprises, enterprises with high capital intensity, enterprises with low analyst attention, and enterprises in high-tech industries. Through a mechanism analysis, we discovered that ESG disagreements can lead to information asymmetry and heightened default risk, subsequently affecting the maturity of corporate debt. Further analysis confirms that the negative impact of ESG on the debt structure inhibits long-term investment and exacerbates the mismatch between investment and financing terms.

Under the background of the misplacement of time and space in the trial judicial reform in China, this paper constructs a difference-in-difference model with multiple time periods to systematically investigate the influence of judicial reform on the short-term debt for long-term use of Chinese listed companies and its economic consequences. The research results show that, compared with the companies not affected by the judicial reform pilot, the short debt long ratio of the companies affected by the judicial reform pilot increased by 8.76% on average, and this phenomenon is more obvious in non-state-owned enterprises, asset-light enterprises, small enterprises and enterprises with unified leadership. In addition, it is found that the judicial reform and firms' short-term debt for long-term use increase the risk of corporate bankruptcy. The results help to clarify the mystery of debt maturity structure in China, and provide new ideas and evidence for alleviating the long-term use of corporate short bonds, improving the mismatch of investment and financing maturity and preventing systemic financial risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The study investigates the impact of the interaction effect of product market competition and rollover risk on the default risk of the firms. Design/methodology/approach: The study used the sample of unbalanced panel data from Indian corporates without any survivability bias over the period from 2009 to 2020 consisting of 30,396 firm-year observations of 6,718 firms spread across 143 industry groups. The panel data regression tests the interaction effect in the context of the asset substitution problem, predation threat theory, competitive shock, and competitive risk. Findings: The empirical results highlighted the dominance of the predatory effect of competition over the disciplinary advantage of short-term debts. The competitive shock to the industry results in a higher credit spread for refinancing short-term debt and significantly increases rollover risk for firms. Smaller firms have higher default risk from rollover losses than larger firms in the face of competition due to asset-substitution problems and strong rivalry. For firms with weaker fundamentals, the interaction effect of rollover risk and competition exacerbates the flight-to-quality problem, resulting in a systemic event. Practical implications: The investors can benefit by factoring ex-ante the interdependence of competition, debt market illiquidity, and default premia while calculating the credit risk. The shareholders of competitive firms can reduce the moral hazard of refinancing the rollover losses and defaulting at a higher fundamental default threshold, by reducing sub-optimal utilization of funds by managers and agency costs. Originality/value: As per the best of author knowledge, the present study is the first to study the moderating effect of product market competition in exacerbating default risk through the rollover channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine ways to describe the maturity structure of public debts using few parameters. We compile a novel data set of all promised future payments for U.S. and UK government debt from every month since 1869, and more recently for Peru, Poland, Egypt, and Nigeria. We show there is a unique parametric form which does not arbitrarily restrict debt issuance. We use this model to parsimoniously describe the evolution of public debt maturities and to characterize the relationship between maturity and the term structure of interest rates in the United States since 1940. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes that naming a firm eponymously is a mechanism that small private firms can use to signal their superior financial performance and commitment to fulfill debt contract obligations. Using 621,614 small private firms in Europe over the period 2008–2018, we find that small private eponymous firms pay significantly lower interest on their debts and have more long-term debt than non-eponymous firms. Our findings are robust to various controls and placebo tests. Additional analyses show that eponymy lowers the cost of debt and facilitates long-term debt via reputation signaling and private information. We also document that the effect of eponymy on debt contracting is most pronounced when there is less financial development and when firms' dependence on external financing is low, consistent with the idea that high-quality firms opt for eponymy when they consider less external financing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractWe collected data on the duration of outbreaks in Chinese cities from the websites of National, Provincial, and Municipal Healthcare Commissions as our primary source. Our aim is to investigate the impact of debt maturity structure on COVID-19 shocks. We conducted statistical analyses based on different levels of debt maturity and the severity of the shocks. Subsequently, we empirically tested the mitigating effect of debt maturity structure on pandemic shocks using a fixed-effects model. Our findings reveal that pandemic shocks heighten firms’ business risk. However, extending the debt maturity structure significantly alleviates the impact of these shocks. Robust benchmark results were obtained through instrumental tests employing instrumental variables, PSM-DID, and placebo methods. Mechanism tests demonstrate that extending debt maturity helps in mitigating maturity mismatches, reducing debt financing costs, and alleviating financing constraints. Further analysis indicates that the pandemic mitigating effect of debt maturity structure is more pronounced among firms with lower degrees of marketization and governance, particularly among private firms. Our study contributes to the micro-level understanding of the economic repercussions of major pandemic disasters and enriches research on firm risk from the standpoint of capital structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper documents the different debt maturity choices of firms by allowing debt heterogeneity. We use a sample of US companies’ capital structure and employ dynamic panel regressions and Instrumental Variable approach. When taking the maturity of each type of debt into account, the researcher fails to validate the non-linear relationship between credit quality (firm size) and debt maturity predicted by Diamond in 1991. This study finds a non-linear relationship between revolving credit, term loan, and capital leases but does not find the same relationship with bonds and notes or trust preferred securities. Also, this research finds that different types of debt are explained differently by existing debt maturity theory such as information asymmetry, agency cost of debt, signaling, tax, matching asset maturity, and timing the market hypothesis.

We investigate how tax avoidance affects the maturity structure of debt in firms where tax avoidance costs are presumably low, namely SMEs. Previous research has shown that creditors of listed tax‐avoiding companies impose shorter maturities to more frequently reassess the tax avoidance risks in debt contracts. Using a sample of 110,690 firm‐year observations of Spanish SMEs over the period 2007–2020, we examine the relationship between tax avoidance and debt maturity and the channels driving this relationship. We find that tax‐avoiding SMEs show a longer debt maturity. This effect is stronger for SMEs with higher profitability, lower earnings management incentives, and higher reliability of financial reporting. We also find that tax avoidance reduces leverage and short‐term debt, increases future cash flows, and decreases future cash flow volatility. Overall, these findings suggest that, unlike large firms, SMEs use cash tax savings to reduce leverage and short‐term debt in their financial structure and that tax avoidance is positively valued by their lenders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using panel data for Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2015, this research examines the impact of the green credit policy on the audit fees of heavily polluting firms by adopting a difference-in-difference (DID) model. The results show that the green credit policy increases the audit fees of heavily polluting firms, suggesting that auditors can perceive the risks imposed by the green credit policy on heavily polluting firms. Mechanism tests reveal that the implementation of the green credit policy increases audit fees by increasing the financing cost and reducing the loan maturity. Further research shows that the positive effect is more significant in regions with stronger regulatory environments and higher trust, and among firms without political connections and audited by the top-ten domestic audit firms. The Chinese government should actively encourage third-party financial institutions to participate in firms' environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this study is to investigate the impact of conservatism, debt maturity, and debt covenants on investment efficiency in Indonesian firms, with a focus on the food and staples retail and food and beverage sub-sectors. This study aims to address information asymmetry between agents and principals, using agency theory as the theoretical framework. A quantitative approach is used using secondary data sourced from financial reports available on the IDX website and company websites. This study took a sample of 329 companies using non-probability sampling technique. Data processing using linear regression method. The results show that conservatism significantly improves investment efficiency, while debt maturity and debt covenants do not show a significant effect. This study underscores the importance of conservative financial reporting practices in improving investment efficiency in the Indonesian corporate sector.

This article studies debt maturity in startup firms. Specifically, it analyzes whether the maturity of the debt of these firms is different from that of older firms. It also studies whether these possible differences are maintained during periods of financial crisis. To this end, we use a sample of small Spanish firms during the period 2011-2020. The results indicate that new or recently created firms have debt with shorter maturities. This could be explained by the greater agency problems and information asymmetries that these firms face. Moreover, we observe that this result is maintained during periods of financial crisis.

This paper documents the different debt maturity choices of firms by allowing debt heterogeneity. We use a sample of US companies' capital structure and employ dynamic panel regressions and Instrumental Variable approach. When taking the maturity of each type of debt into account, the researcher fails to validate the non-linear relationship between credit quality (firm size) and debt maturity predicted by Diamond in 1991. This study finds a non-linear relationship between revolving credit, term loan, and capital leases but does not find the same relationship with bonds and notes or trust preferred securities. Also, this research finds that different types of debt are explained differently by existing debt maturity theory such as information asymmetry, agency cost of debt, signaling, tax, matching asset maturity, and timing the market hypothesis. Impact statement: The findings of this paper shed light on the intricate dynamics of debt maturity choices among firms, challenging existing theoretical frameworks. By meticulously examining a diverse array of debt instruments within US companies' capital structures, the study unveils a nuanced non-linear relationship between credit quality (proxied by firm size) and debt maturity, contrary to Diamond's seminal work. Notably, the research delineates varying patterns across different types of debt, revealing distinctive relationships for revolving credit, term loans, and capital leases compared to bonds, notes, or trust preferred securities. Moreover, the study enriches our understanding of debt maturity determinants by dissecting the influence of factors such as information asymmetry, agency costs, signaling, tax considerations, asset maturity matching, and market timing hypotheses. These findings not only contribute to the refinement of debt maturity theories but also offer valuable insights for practitioners navigating capital structure decisions in dynamic economic landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the differences in debt maturity choice between Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) with At-the-Market (ATM) offerings and those without, as well as the subsequent changes in REIT debt maturity following the adoption of ATM programs. We find that ATM REITs consistently maintain higher levels of long-term debt than non-ATM REITs, even after implementing ATM offerings. It suggests that the capital raised through ATM offerings is not primarily utilized to reduce long-term debt. Additionally, the study highlights that small REITs experience a significant increase in short-term debt when actively employing ATM offerings. This outcome indicates that ATM programs offer smaller REITs the necessary financial flexibility to raise funds and address short-term debt obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of relationship banking and collateral on the probability of firm loan default in Kosovo. Using a sample of 2,320 loan-level data from an individual bank credit register, findings indicate that stronger firm-bank relationships reduce the probability of default, and tighter credit policies regarding higher collateral requirements and interest rates have the opposite effect. Re-specifying the model to control for the banking sector concentration Hirschman-Herfindahl Index (HHI) and the Net Interest Margin (NIM), the firm-bank relationship is no longer statistically significant. Results show that the crisis negatively impacts credit risk, while HHI positively affects the probability of loan default. This evidence suggests that banking relationship matters only in competitive markets. To test the potential interaction effect between relationship banking and collateral, Fairlie's (1999) decomposition technique is deployed. Our results imply that high concentration levels in the banking sector render firm-bank relationships relatively less important. This is of utmost importance for SMEs, banks, and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of geographic segment disclosures under the Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 131 (SFAS 131) on the debt maturity structure of internationally diversified firms. I find that the proportion of short-maturity debt increases with a firm's international diversification. Moreover, the implementation of SFAS 131 attenuates the positive relation between international diversification and short-maturity debt. This attenuation effect is more pronounced for firms that continue to disclose geographic segment earnings in the post-SFAS 131 period than firms that do not. As short-maturity debt subjects firms to refinancing and potential costly liquidation risks, these results suggest a beneficial role of SFAS 131 in reducing firms' reliance on short-maturity debt to address information asymmetry and agency costs of debt arising from international diversification. Furthermore, this study suggests that enhanced mandatory disclosure has a real effect on firms' financing activities and capital structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the relationship between creditor protection and the debt maturity structure of corporations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The GCC countries enjoy large GDPs, growing capital markets, especially the Islamic bonds (Sukuk) market, and negligible tax environments. Nonetheless, the GCC countries' financial systems are still dominated by banks, and their private investments are held by concentrated investors. The study utilizes firm-level financial data and country-level institutional data obtained from the World Bank Governance Indicators and Doing Business databases and applies the two-stage least square estimator to test its hypotheses. The findings indicate that stronger regulatory effectiveness is associated with long debt maturities, while better creditor protection is associated with short debt maturities. The latter finding suggests that managers and owners have incentives to utilize short-term debt in economies characterized by stronger liquidation and insolvency rules to avoid the loss of control in the case of a firm default. This finding has policy implications in terms of the importance of considering the dual influence of institutional reforms on the supply of and demand for long-term capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have analyzed the association between firms' life cycle stages (LCSs) and their debt maturity (DM). This paper deepens the discussion on capital structure from the perspective of the LCSs' dynamic effect associated with DM. The sample was composed by secondary data from 370 (non-financial) Brazilian listed companies in the period from 2010 to 2019, gathered quarterly. The data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, tests of differences between means and regression analysis from panel data. The results showed that the DM presents no association with LCS, following an inverted U-shape. It has been observed that the maturity stage had a positive effect on the DM, however, as companies move towards the shake-out and decline stages, DM experiences successive reductions. The findings are relevant for providing insights for future research. In addition, they have the potential to contribute to managers, board members, credit committees, capital providers in general, risk management process, and resource allocation.

Admati, Demarzo, Hellwig, and Pfleiderer (ADHP, 2018) note that static models of optimal leverage have assumed firms have no prior debt. In this case, the leverage that maximizes firm value also maximizes value to the initial equity owners. However, using a simple two-period model with zero coupon debt and default possible only at maturity, ADHP prove two startling results: (i) when prior debt is extant, it will never benefit equity holders to retire debt, no matter how high the current leverage; and (ii) it will be in the equity owners' interest to issue sequential rounds of additional debt, until all the tax advantages of debt are exhausted: the “Leverage Ratcheting Effect” (LRE). An immediate conclusion is that one-round (static) models of optimal debt issuance with no prior debt provide poor guidance as to a firm's optimal leverage. We examine these contentions using an alternative model of debt, with rollover at a proportional rate m and average maturity = 1/m, introduced in Leland (1994a). We show that when the average maturity of debt is substantially longer than 5 years, considerable further debt will indeed be issued, although issuance ceases well before tax benefits are exhausted. With 5-year average maturity, very little additional debt is issued under reasonable calibrations. With 3-year average maturity, no additional debt is issued and it may actually be optimal for the firm to buy back debt, in contradiction to the LRE. We explain why our model gives differing results.

Financial statement comparability improves the quality of financial information and the information environment, and enabling users to identify similarities and differences between different companies, and evaluating the performance of managers and supervising them. So, it is expected that increasing the comparability of financial statements will limit the opportunism of managers. In this regard, in this study, the relationship between comparability of companies and debt maturity has been investigated. The data of the present study were collected using the financial information of 125 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange in the period 2013 to 2019 (882 observation). To analyze the data, a multivariate linear regression model of the generalized least squares type by utilizing combined data was used. The results showed that there is a negative and significant relationship between the comparability of financial statements and the maturity of the company's debt. Therefore, it can be concluded that the Financial statement comparability plays an important role in aligning incentives in the company and by reducing information asymmetry and potential agency costs, can substitute for the use of short-term debt by serving as a corporate governance mechanism.

Consistent with the existence of a rollover risk channel, we document that an increase in short‐term debt proportional to the total debt increases the cost of long‐term debt. The effect of rollover risk is more pronounced for the firms that are vulnerable to unforeseen negative events. Moreover, we find that the marginal effect of short‐term debt on the yield spread is intensified during periods of market illiquidity. Finally, our results suggest that this positive effect on the yield spread due to increased rollover risk is partially offset by a negative effect due to the attenuation of underinvestment problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper mainly discusses how tax reduction policies may affect a firm's debt maturity structure by altering firm performance. When an indirect financing system is dominated by banks, such as is the situation in China, tax reduction policies impose two opposite effects on the firm debt maturity structure. The improved profitability will encourage banks to lengthen debt maturity to retain firm customers, which can be called the 'customer competing effect'. Meanwhile, the increased free cash flow will exaggerate the principle‐agent problem between banks and firms, leading to a shortened debt maturity, which is designated the 'agency cost effect'. In this paper, based on China's Industrial Enterprise Database, we use China's VAT (value‐added tax) reform as a natural experiment to empirically test the two effects. After the tax reduction, firm debt maturity was found to generally lengthen. Meanwhile, such an extension is found to be larger when the firm's profit gain is greater or the increased free cash flow is less, which confirms our hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This study investigates the impact of debt maturity structure on the marginal value of cash holdings. • We find a positive relationship between the proportion of short-term debt and the marginal value of cash holdings. • The results indicate that frequent interactions with capital markets, driven by short-term debt, act as a monitoring mechanism that enhances transparency and mitigates agency issues. • Further analysis confirms the underlying mechanisms, including financial constraints, managerial moral hazards, and information asymmetry. This study investigates the impact of debt maturity on the marginal value of cash holdings. It posits that short-term debt acts as a crucial governance mechanism by reducing agency conflicts and aligning managerial actions with shareholder interests. Using a sample of U.S. public firms, the results indicate that firms with higher proportions of short-term debt have a greater marginal value of cash, reflecting more efficient resource allocation and reduced managerial opportunism. The necessity for frequent capital market interactions associated with short-term debt mitigates agency conflicts. Additionally, the study explores three potential mechanisms: financial constraints, managerial moral hazard, and information asymmetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the capital structure and debt maturity in nonprofit organizations (NPOs). In particular, we analyze whether these financing decisions are made as expected according to the two main theories used to explain the capital structure, that is, the trade-off and pecking order theories. To do so, we study the associations between NPOs' indebtedness and their size, age, tangibility, liquidity, profitability, risk, and growth. We use fixed effects, probit, and Heckman selection models with unbalanced panel data containing 8,721 charities in the United Kingdom for the period 2011–2018 (60,222 year-obs). Our results show that the financing patterns of NPOs are consistent with the arguments of the pecking order theory. We also find that less than half of our sample uses long-term debt. Moreover, debt maturity is longer in larger NPOs, those with more tangible assets, or those with higher liquidity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the association between tax aggressiveness, fair value accounting and debt maturity and whether Integrated Reporting (IR) moderates those relationships. This study's methodology is a quantitative approach with multiple linear regression models and panel data. The sample employed in this study is manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). The type of data used is secondary data sourced from financial statements and annual reports from 2016 to 2020. The sample selection using a purposive sampling method with the number of samples amounted to 595 firm-year observations. This study suggests that tax aggressiveness and fair value accounting have an inverse association with debt maturity. However, IR failed to weaken the negative impact of extensive fair value accounting on debt maturity. The Financial Services Authority (OJK) can consider this study to improve supervision and regulation for better creditor protection through the company's optimal debt maturity policy.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between creditor protection and the debt maturity structure of corporations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The GCC countries enjoy large GDPs, growing capital markets, especially the Islamic bonds (Sukuk) market, and negligible tax environments. Nonetheless, the GCC countries’ financial systems are still dominated by banks, and their private investments are held by concentrated investors. The study utilizes firm-level financial data and country-level institutional data obtained from the World Bank Governance Indicators and Doing Business databases and applies the two-stage least square estimator to test its hypotheses. The findings indicate that stronger regulatory effectiveness is associated with long debt maturities, while better creditor protection is associated with short debt maturities. The latter finding suggests that managers and owners have incentives to utilize short-term debt in economies characterized by stronger liquidation and insolvency rules to avoid the loss of control in the case of a firm default. This finding has policy implications in terms of the importance of considering the dual influence of institutional reforms on the supply of and demand for long-term capital.

Financial statement comparability improves the quality of financial information and the information environment. It hence enables users to identify similarities and differences between different companies, evaluate the performance of managers, and supervise them. So, it is expected that increasing the comparability of financial statements will limit the opportunism of managers. Accordingly, in this study, the relationship between the comparability of companies and debt maturity has been investigated. The data of the present study were collected using the financial information of 125 companies listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange in the period 2013 to 2019 (882 observations). To analyze the data, a multivariate linear regression model of the generalized least squares type by utilizing combined data was used. The results show that there is a negative and significant relationship between the comparability of financial statements and the maturity of the company's debt. Therefore, it can be concluded that financial statement comparability plays an important role in aligning incentives in a company and by reducing information asymmetry and potential agency costs, can substitute for the use of short-term debt by serving as a corporate governance mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines financing behavior during financial crises in an international sample of corporate firms including 85 countries from 1987 to 2017. Measuring "financial cyclicality" as the difference between financing levels during normal times and financial crisis times, we document counter‐cyclicality in leverage and pro‐cyclicality in security issuances and debt maturity. Financial crises discourage both debt and equity issuances, with a greater decline in equity, leverage increases, and debt maturity decreases. Public debt markets partially act as spare tire during crises when bank loan supply contracts significantly. Leverage financial counter‐cyclicality is more pronounced in countries with weaker banking regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debt maturity structure plays an important role in enterprises’ capital structure policies, and debt maturity varies from industry to industry. The paper investigates the determinants that affect the debt maturity structure of listed firms in the consumer goods industry from 2009 to 2019. The data is collected from consumer goods companies listed on the Vietnam Stock Exchange. The feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) estimation is demonstrated to consider not only micro but also macroeconomic variables that have influenced the corporate debt maturity policy. The empirical results show that five microeconomic factors, such as capital structure, asset structure, asset liquidity, profitability, and firm size, have influenced the debt maturity and are statistically significant. Meanwhile, macroeconomic factors such as inflation rate and credit growth have significantly affected the corporate debt maturity. Finally, the paper provides some suggestions for financial managers on the optimal corporate debt maturity in the consumer goods sector and recommendations for policy-makers when implementing macroeconomic policies.

The maturity structure of debt can have financial and operational consequences for a firm as debt maturity is a key aspect of financial flexibility. Moreover, debt maturity can impact a firm’s ability to undertake long-term productive investments and, as a result, affect economic activity. This study aims to examine the effect of earnings quality on debt maturity and the role of Integrated Reporting (IR) in moderating these effects. This study's methodology is a quantitative approach with multiple linear regression models and panel data. The sample employed in this study is manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). The type of data employed in this study is secondary data sourced from financial statements and annual reports from 2016 to 2020. The sample selection using a purposive sampling method with the number of samples amounted to 595 firm-year observations. The results of this study suggest that earnings quality does not affect debt maturity. Additional tests show that income maximization companies tend to have shorter debt maturity. However, IR failed to moderate the effect of earnings quality on debt maturity. This study indicates that the Financial Services Authority (OJK) needs to conduct better monitoring and regulation to increase creditor protection through optimal debt policy disclosure from the companies.

Previous research shows that accounting conservatism facilitates debt contracting. Extending this line of literature, we examine whether the role of accounting conservatism in accessing external debt to attain firm growth varies with its maturity. We find evidence of a positive relationship between conservatism and debt maturity. We also observe a positive relationship between conservative accounting and future growth funded by all classes of debt, but this relation is due to long-term rather than short-term debt, which is less prone to agency risk. Furthermore, the associations between conservatism and debt maturity and conservatism and growth financed by long-term debt are mostly observed for firms with fewer anti-takeover provisions in place. These findings suggest that the demand for accounting conservatism is not uniform across different debt maturity horizons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the relation between the maturity of new debt issues and firms' choice between bank loans and public bonds. We use borrowing firms' asset maturity and effective tax rates to instrument for the debt maturity, and bank competition and bank liquidity in the borrowers' state to instrument for the debt choice. The analysis provides evidence of causality in both directions. Consistent with theories based on information asymmetry and agency costs, we find that firms which seek to increase the borrowing term by one standard deviation are 30% less likely to choose bank loans, while firms which prefer bank loans have 70 months shorter maturity on average. Our results remain significant, albeit with smaller economic magnitudes, when we use different samples, include firm fixed effects, or use heteroskedasticity based instruments as in Lewbel (J Bus Econ Stat 30(1):67–80, 2012). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the potential simultaneous relationships among leverage, debt maturity and cash holdings and how these jointly affect financial policy and firms' investment activities in developing countries of Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore during the period 2006–2015. Using the two‐step system GMM estimator, our results show that high‐growth firms not only shorten debt maturity to reduce the underinvestment incentive, but also decrease leverage to reduce liquidity risk. We find evidence that the level of cash holdings is a key determinant of leverage in all countries and that debt policy and growth opportunities affect the investment decision of firms in Thailand and Singapore whereas cash policy is more important in Indonesia. These findings have significant implications for investment decisions in these economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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We examined the effects of access to public debt on the corporate financing decisions in real estate investment trusts (REITs) using a difference-in-differences approach and a propensity score approach. The introduction of credit ratings by S&P and Moody's has allowed REITs to access the public debt market. To investigate the impacts of the introduction of credit ratings, we compared the financing policies in REITs with initial credit ratings before and after the introduction of credit ratings with REITs that had not obtained a credit rating between 1980 and 2016. After obtaining credit ratings, REITs have significantly increased the corporate leverage ratios and the use of long term debt, which suggest that REITs were constrained from debt financing, in particular long term debt financing, in the past until they could gain access to the public debt market after the introduction of credit ratings. Access to the public debt market has also significantly reduced both equity issuances and cash holdings. Our empirical results suggest that the introduction of credit ratings can reduce information asymmetry, and affect REITs' capital structure decisions and the level of cash holdings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]