| 摘要: | It has been argued that more profitable firms are less likely to depend on debt in their capital structure. It has also been argued that firms with a higher growth rate tend to have a higher debt to equity ratio. The purpose of this study is investigate the determinants of the capital structure and debt maturity structure for 54 real estate companies listed on the Vietnam stock exchange. To my knowledge this is the first study that has been attempted for Vietnam. Some previous studies applied the ordinary least square (OLS) technique to estimate the individual equations for capital structure and debt maturity structure. However, this study employs the pooled two-stage least squares method to estimate the simultaneous-equations regression model in the sense that capital structure and debt maturity structure are likely joinly determined decisions (Barclay et al., 2003).
The pooled data are collected at the yearly interval, covering the time period from 2011 to 2013 of 54 real estate listed company in Hanoi Stock Exchange and Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange. The dependent variables include the ratio of total debt to total assets as proxy of capital structure decision (Rtd) and the ratio of long-term debt to total debt as the proxy of debt maturity structure decision (Rld). The control common variables include years of existence (AGE), scale of the company (SIZE), profitability (π), growth opportunity (G) measured by growth of total assets, asset maturity (MA) measured by the ratio of fixed assets to total assets, and liquidity (LQ) measured by the ratio of current assets to current debt. To meet the order condition, lagged Rtd (LRtd) is included in the equation of capital structure decision and lagged Rld (LRld) are included in the Rld equation added to the those independent variables. It is justified to include lagged leverage and maturity in the equations because capital structure and debt maturity structure are to some extent rigid and changes in either of them incur cost.
The results indicate that liquidity (LQ) was found positively related to the debt maturity structure decision and was negatively and significantly related to the capital structure decision. The ratio of long-term debt to total debt in year t-1 (LRld) was positively correlated with the debt maturity structure in year t. The ratio of total debt to total assets in year t-1 (LRtd) was also positively associated with the capital structure in year t. Both findings suggest that the two financial decisions were positively autocorrelated, implying that debt maturity structure and capital structure were rigid with cost incurred in changes in either of them. Asset maturity structure (MA) was found negatively related to the capital structure decision, suggesting that those firms with higher ratios of current assets to total assets tended to have lower financial leverage. Finally, it is noted that the positive effect of debt maturity structure on capital structure indicates that those firms with higher ratios of long-term debt to total assets tended to have higher financial leverage. |
