Does the economic development matter for the country-level determinants of debt maturity?

What is it about?

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of economic development on the influence of country-level determinants on corporate debt maturity, bearing in mind firm size and the period of financial crisis. Corporate debt maturity increases with the efficiency of the legal system and bank concentration and decreases with the weight of banks in the economy. However, the importance of these country determinants is greater in developing than in developed countries. The authors also show that firm size in developed and developing countries influences country determinants of corporate debt maturity. Finally, the results reveal that the financial crisis has affected the debt maturity of firms differently in developed and developing countries, with the effect of bank concentration lengthening debt maturity, this effect being more pronounced in developing countries.

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Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Why is it important?

We investigate the way in which observed differences in institutional quality and banking structure across developing and developed countries affect the corporate debt maturity choice.

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