Economic policy uncertainty and capital structure choice: Evidence from China

• Published in: Economic systems Vol. 39; no. 3; pp. 439 - 457
• Main Authors: Zhang, Guangli, Han, Jianlei, Pan, Zheyao, Huang, Haozhi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Heidelberg Elsevier B.V 01.09.2015; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Banking industry; Capital structure; China; Economic policy; Economic policy uncertainty; Studies; Trade credit; China; Trade credit; E66; Economic policy uncertainty; China; G32; G38; Capital structure; G18
• ISSN: 0939-3625; 1878-5433
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecosys.2015.06.003

•Chinese firms’ leverage ratios decrease when economic policy uncertainty increases.•This effect is heterogeneous in terms of regional marketization, ownership and bank-firm relationship.•This effect is sourced from the deterioration of the external financing environment imposed by economic policy uncertainty. This paper studies how economic policy uncertainty affects corporate capital structure for Chinese listed firms from 2003 to 2013. We show that as the degree of economic policy uncertainty increases, firms tend to lower their leverage ratios. However, firms that are from regions with lower degrees of marketization, are state-owned or have prior bank-firm relationships mitigate the negative effect of policy uncertainty. Moreover, we provide consistent evidence that this negative effect is sourced from the deterioration of the external financing environment. We also find that firms adjust their financing structures by using more trade credit when economic policy uncertainty increases. Our results are robust to sample selection, data frequency, model specification and endogeneity.