Existing theories of a firm's optimal capital structure seem to fail in explaining why many healthy and profitable firms rely heavily on equity financing, even though benefits associated with debt (like tax shields) appear to be high and the bankruptcy risk low. This holds in particular for...

This paper contributes to the academic debate on the pecking order theory and SMEs equity financing, in this equity financing gap. In order to address this problem, this study relies on the empirical design that is driven by the premises of the pecking order theory and distinguishes between the...

We examine the role of female directors on firm cost of equity in the context of US-listed firms, and further explore the mediating impact of debt financing policy on such association. Using a dataset of 4619 non-financial firm-year observations covering the period of 2008-2019, we find that...