{"title":"Social trust and the choice between bank debt and public debt: Evidence from international data","authors":"Sharif Mazumder , Ramesh Rao","doi":"10.1016/j.mulfin.2022.100781","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Motivated by existing research on the informational and monitoring role of social trust, we examine how social trust affects firms’ choice between bank debt and public debt. Using firm-level data from 33 countries, we document that higher social trust is associated positively (negatively) with the long-term public (bank) debt ratio. The findings are robust when we control for other important country-level and firm-level factors. There are two possible channels of this association. We find that social trust affects debt structure through monitoring and borrowers’ incentive channels. To address potential endogeneity, we use instrumental variables<span>, propensity score and entropy balancing matching, and large change analyses and document that our findings are robust. Examining the effect of debt structure on firm performance, we find that Tobin's Q associates positively with long-term public debt ratios in high-trust countries.</span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":47268,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Multinational Financial Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Multinational Financial Management","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1042444X22000524","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Motivated by existing research on the informational and monitoring role of social trust, we examine how social trust affects firms’ choice between bank debt and public debt. Using firm-level data from 33 countries, we document that higher social trust is associated positively (negatively) with the long-term public (bank) debt ratio. The findings are robust when we control for other important country-level and firm-level factors. There are two possible channels of this association. We find that social trust affects debt structure through monitoring and borrowers’ incentive channels. To address potential endogeneity, we use instrumental variables, propensity score and entropy balancing matching, and large change analyses and document that our findings are robust. Examining the effect of debt structure on firm performance, we find that Tobin's Q associates positively with long-term public debt ratios in high-trust countries.
期刊介绍:
International trade, financing and investments have grown at an extremely rapid pace in recent years, and the operations of corporations have become increasingly multinationalized. Corporate executives buying and selling goods and services, and making financing and investment decisions across national boundaries, have developed policies and procedures for managing cash flows denominated in foreign currencies. These policies and procedures, and the related managerial actions of executives, change as new relevant information becomes available. The purpose of the Journal of Multinational Financial Management is to publish rigorous, original articles dealing with the management of the multinational enterprise. Theoretical, conceptual, and empirical papers providing meaningful insights into the subject areas will be considered. The following topic areas, although not exhaustive, are representative of the coverage in this Journal. • Foreign exchange risk management • International capital budgeting • Forecasting exchange rates • Foreign direct investment • Hedging strategies • Cost of capital • Managing transaction exposure • Political risk assessment • International working capital management • International financial planning • International tax management • International diversification • Transfer pricing strategies • International liability management • International mergers.