Ownership, Institutions, and Capital Structure: Evidence from China

Abstract

We employ a unique data set to explore the role of ownership structure and institutional development in debt financing of non-publicly traded Chinese firms. We show that state ownership is positively associated with leverage and firms' access to long-term debt, while foreign ownership is negatively associated with all measures of leverage. Surprisingly, firms in better developed regions are associated with reduced access to long-term debt, suggesting the availability of alternative financing channels and the tightening of the lending standards under the on-going banking reform. The combination of ownership structures and institutions explains up to six percent of the total variation in firms' leverage decisions, while firm characteristics alone explain no more than eight percent of the variation. Finally, we show that the negative effect of institutional development on firms' access to long-term debt is mitigated when the level of state or foreign ownership is high, and state ownership plays no role in foreign-controlled firms' access to long-term debt while its positive effect on access to long-term debt is strengthened for firms in well developed regions. Our evidence is consistent with state-owned banks' incentives to grant long-term loans only to state-owned firms in the absence of well-developed risk management.

Keywords: foreign ownership, leverage, long-term debt, marketization, short-term debt, state ownership

JEL Classification: G32, G15, G18