The principal aim of this paper is to test how firm characteristics affect Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) capital structure. We carry out an empirical analysis over a panel data of 6482 non?financial Spanish SMEs along the five-year period 1994?1998, modelling the leverage ratio as a function...

This paper studies the determinants of the capital structure of small and medium sized companies. In a second step, this analysis is extended to large companies. The research is based on two financial theories (i) pecking order theory (TPO) and (ii) management strategy theory (TEP), with...

This paper proposes a historically-grounded mechanism-design model of corporate finance, with two-side risk aversion under limited contract enforceability, where (inside) equity held by entrepreneurs, debt and (outside) equity coexist. This capital structure shares optimally the...

In this paper, we explore two of the most relevant theories that explain financial policy in small and medium enterprises (SMEs): pecking order theory and trade-off theory. Panel data methodology is used to test the empirical hypotheses over a sample of 6482 Spanish SMEs during the five-year...

The objective of this work is to analyse the factors motivating firms to follow a conservative (or low-leverage) financial policy over several years. We carry out a study on a sample of 1,396 Spanish firms in the period 1993-2001. Using logit regression and various difference of means analyses,...