TY - JOUR AB - Purpose The purpose of this study is to explain the adjustment rate toward the target capital structure of Chinese nonfinancial listed firms and to investigate the impacts of the split-share reforms (2005–2006) on the capital structure adjustment rate.Design/methodology/approach The authors control for the unobserved heterogeneity and the fractional nature of the adjustment rate by applying an unbiased dynamic panel fractional estimator on the unbalanced panel data of 27,545 firm-year observations of Chinese nonfinancial firms listed during 1998–2015.Findings The authors find that Chinese firms adjust at an annual rate of 19–27% to reach their capital structure targets. The authors also find a positive impact of the split-share reforms on the adjustment rates of Chinese nonfinancial firms toward their target capital structure. Split-share reforms also helped Chinese firms to increase the use of equity financing in their capital structure.Practical implications The authors argue that the government should strengthen capital markets to enable easy access to more financing options so that Chinese firms can acquire cheaper external financing.Originality/value To the best of authors' knowledge, this is the first study that applies an unbiased dynamic panel fractional estimator on an extended data set of 27,545 firm-year observations of Chinese nonfinancial firms listed during 1998–2015. VL - 47 IS - 6 SN - 0144-3585 DO - 10.1108/JES-03-2019-0096 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/JES-03-2019-0096 AU - Ahsan Tanveer AU - Mirza Sultan Sikandar AU - Al-Gamrh Bakr AU - Tauni Muhammad Zubair PY - 2020 Y1 - 2020/01/01 TI - Split-share reforms and capital structure adjustment in China: a dynamic panel fractional estimation T2 - Journal of Economic Studies PB - Emerald Publishing Limited SP - 1265 EP - 1280 Y2 - 2024/04/24 ER -