We test the hypotheses that, in presence of financial constraints, a low leverage policy directed at maintaining financial flexibility can affect company investment. Low leverage is defined according to deviations from target which are estimated via GMS-SYS. Our analysis reveals that, following...

I show that ownership by blockholding and board composition is an important determinant ofcorporate debt maturity structure. Using GMM methodology to control for the potential endogeneityof all regressors, I find a statistically and economically significant negative relation between...

This paper studies conservative debt policies, focusing on firms with no debt (zeroleverage)or with extremely low debt. Examining an unbalanced panel of U.K. firms,we show that debt conservatism is a common, persistent yet puzzling empiricalregularity: nearly 10% of U.K. firms have zero leverage...