Financing Choices of Firms in EU Accession Countries

The paper presents evidence of actual and target capital structures of firms in five EU accession countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Estonia). We consider the financial constraints of private companies and compare the level of indebtedness and the determinants firms’ choices of capital structure in selected EU accession countries and EU countries. A dynamic nonlinear adjustment model is adopted to explicitly model the adjustment of a firm’s leverage to a target leverage.