Financial Markets and the Financing Choice of Firms : Empirical Analysis of Emerging Market Countries JKM

This study attempts to extend knowledge of the role of financial market development in the financing choice of firms in developing countries using cross-sectional regression estimator with a dynamic-panel approach for 219 firms listed on the three emerging countries during the period 1990-2012. Capital structure studies have generally been aimed at studying the determinants of optimal leverage. Empirically, the focus is, however, on studying the association between observed leverage and a set of explanatory variables. Various theories, namely, the trade-off, pecking order and agency theories, are deployed to explain and predict the signs and significance of each factor identified by Ragan and Zingales (1995) and Booth et al. (2001). The pioneering work of Modigliani and Millar, and many scholars revealed that the financial leverage is one of the most influencing factors in determining the firm growth. The results suggest that liquidity and profitability are negatively and significantly related to the leverage ratios, while the firm size is positively and significantly related to leverage. Leverage is negatively related with tangibility in two emerging countries. Therefore, growth opportunities are positively related to book value leverage and negatively related to market leverage in all three emerging countries. However, our results generally indicate that both the trade-off and the pecking order theories can explain three emerging firms' financing decisions. These results indicate that high price-earnings ratios and high interest rates will cause firms to choose equity over debt, as both of these factors reduce the cost of equity finance. Furthermore, the results suggest an unimportant role for economic growth and inflation rates in explaining the variation in debt-equity ratios. Results show that further development in the stock market indicators are negatively and significantly related to the leverage ratios in emerging countries (Jordan, Kuwait and Malaysia) suggesting that as equity markets in these countries become more developed and their liquidity improves, while banking sector development favours debt financing over equity financing, as one would expect