"Zervos documents the precise costs of debt and equity issuance, both domestically and internationally, for firms in … issuing debt locally or abroad, whereas domestic equity issuance is nearly twice as expensive as debt. While the Chilean … domestic corporate debt market is well developed by emerging market standards (size of the market and maturity of issues …

, resulting in increased equity levels and decreased long-term debt levels. The authors also find that smaller and more profitable … firms were more likely to reduce their debt levels. These findings are consistent with the trade-off theory of capital … structure, which suggests that lower taxes decrease the incentive to hold debt due to decreasing interest tax deductibility …

infrastructure operators and 23 transport services operators distributed over 23 countries. The authors show that leverage rates vary … evidence they present shows that debt is replacing equity in financing the investment needs of utilities and transport services …

"Previous research has documented weak, and sometimes conflicting, effects of legal quality on measures of firm debt … denomination of debt. The authors discuss several mechanisms by which firms can avoid the costs of poor legal systems with foreign …