An Empirical Investigation Of The Corporate Debt Maturity Structure

Unlike the extensive literature on the more general topic of capital structure, empirical research in the corporate debt maturity area is still scant. Related studies had formulated theoretical justifications for the observed cross-sectional multiplicity of debt maturities without a parallel concern in empirical research and to date, little empirical work has been conducted to test those formulations. In this context, this paper makes a major contribution in that it attempts to explain how corporate debt maturity choice is determined. At the core of this study is a general multiple choice model that makes it possible to examine how the different hypotheses on debt maturity advanced thusfar determine that choice. Using an ordered model as opposed to a simple model had the advantage of capturing the segmentation in the debt maturity market while allowing a gain in efficiency for the parameter estimates. The results from this model lend strong support to the hypothesis that, overall, when choosing the maturity of a new debt, corporate managers seek to minimize the agency costs of debt in general, especially those from the incentive for wealth expropriation by investing in riskier projects than originally anticipated. The evidence is also consistent with the assumption that managers do commit themselves not to transfer wealth from bondholders to stockholders by attaching protective covenants to the newly issued debt. Finally, the model's classificatory ability is tested for meaningfulness by comparing it to the proportional chance model.

We provide an empirical examination of the determinants of corporate debt maturity. Our evidence offers strong support for the contracting-cost hypothesis. Firms that have few growth options are large, or are regulated have more long-term debt in their capital structure. We find little evidence that firms use the maturity structure of their debt to signal information to the market. The evidence is consistent, however, with the hypothesis that firms with larger information asymmetries issue more short- term debt. We find no evidence that taxes affect debt maturity.

The maturity structure of debt can have financial and real consequences. Short-term debt exposes borrowers to rollover risk (where the terms of financing are renegotiated to the detriment of the borrower) and is associated with financial crises. Moreover, debt maturity can have an impact on the ability of firms to undertake long-term productive investments and, as a result, affect economic activity. The aim of this paper is to examine the evolution and determinants of debt maturity and to characterize differences across countries.