Short‐Term Corporate Debt around the World

Marco Sorge, Chendi Zhang, Konstantinos Koufopoulos

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Short‐term corporate debt as a proportion of total debt issued by public firms varies greatly across countries, between 28% in the United States and 78% in China. This paper argues that the interaction between information asymmetry and legal protection of creditors is an important determinant of debt maturity. When short‐term debt plays a dual role as signaling and commitment devices, a reduction in information asymmetry has a larger impact on debt maturity when creditor rights are weaker. We find empirical support for this prediction using firm‐level data from 45 countries around the world.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)997-1029
Number of pages33
JournalJournal of Money Credit and Banking
Volume49
Issue number5
Early online date24 Jul 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2017

Bibliographical note

©2017 The Ohio State University. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

Keywords

  • debt maturity
  • information sharing
  • creditor protection
  • law and finance

Cite this