Capital Structure Dynamics in UK and Continental Europe

This paper analyzes capital structure determinants of UK and continental European firms. Besides considering firmspecific characteristics, it investigates the impact of different corporate governance related institution- and marketspecific aspects on the capital structure choice. The dynamic framework allows to analyze short- and longterm adjustments and to relate them to firm- and systemspecific characteristics. Our data contain balance sheet and profit&loss account data of 167 European firms from 1988 to 1998. From our panel data regressions we find significant differences in the capital structure choice between the firms of the considered corporate governance systems.