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The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical support for micro‐economic theory respecting debt capacity and develop a practically useful model for assessing debt capacity for firms seeking to minimize credit risk and the cost of debt (interest rate).

Theoretically important factors explaining the variation in debt capacity are identified and tested, namely: the proportion of property, plant and equipment over total assets, industry group (highlighting asset specificity), sales variability, and the depreciation method. Data were collected from the SEC Disclosure Database. Using the SPSS software, this paper's theoretically based constructs were tested by developing a linear regression model.

The regression results indicate that the theoretical model explains a statistically significant portion of the variation across firms in the proportion of debt to total assets a firm is willing (and is allowed by the financial market) to carry. However, a major portion of the variation in debt capacity is not explained. Future research can identify and test other factors to develop a better explanatory model.

Subject to the above limitation, the model developed provides a basis for firms to assess their debt capacity. Firm's whose actual debt to asset ratio is less than their debt capacity can borrow more if needed and if additional leverage is justified. Creditors can also use the estimated debt capacity when deciding the terms (including the interest rate) of extending credit. Investors can shy away from companies with very little or no unused debt capacity to reduce their portfolio risk.

This paper's academic and practical contributions, respectively, are to empirically test debt capacity's theoretical constructs and provide a practically useful and theoretically based model for assessing debt capacity by creditors, investors, and the companies.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a novel measure of access to credit suited to estimate the relative change in credit reserves.

A debt possibility frontier is estimated using data envelopment analysis and the Malmquist index is calculated. The Malmquist index is redubbed the Debt Development index and decomposed into “change in debt capacity” and “change in debt capacity utilization”. Bootstrapping is applied for statistical inference. The method is applied to an unbalanced panel of 92,000 Danish farm accounts from 1996 to 2009.

The paper finds that credit capacity roughly doubled for Danish farmers over the period, and that utilization of credit capacity generally was proportional to capacity change, utilization being higher for dairy and pig farms, than for crop farms.

Changes in credit reserves may have important implications for risk management practice, investment and technology adoption and related policy issues. The method is limited by the possibility of strategic behavior of lenders during credit cycle busts. In credit cycle booms, the method gives a good basis for the estimates of change in credit reserves.

In a period of increasing credit reserves, risk management institutions are unlikely to develop. Like agricultural policy, access to credit may crowd out market-based risk management.

The study represents a novel application and interpretation of a well-known method.

Based on the perspective of cognitive psychology, this paper takes the M&A events of Chinese A-share listed enterprises from 2008 to 2015 as the research samples, and then empirically analyzes the influence of managerial overconfidence on M&A premium under the special circumstances in China and tests the moderating effect of debt capacity between managerial overconfidence and M&A premium.

This paper selects the M&A events of all A-share listed enterprises from 2008 to 2015 as the total samples. In view of the fact that the data in this paper are unbalanced panel data, so this paper uses the LR test, LR test and Hausman test to filter the mixed OLS model, fixed effect model and random effect model. Finally, using the random effect model for empirical testing reduces the endogeneity of the model.

The study shows that managerial overconfidence is positively correlated with M&A premium; at the same time, compared with the state-owned enterprises, the relationship between managerial overconfidence and M&A premium is more significant in private enterprises. Further study shows that debt capacity can strengthen the relationship between managerial overconfidence and M&A premium, to be specific, the larger the debt capacity is, the stronger the positive relationship between managerial overconfidence and M&A premium will be. Moreover, after considering the influence of agency cost and financing expense, and conducting endogenous test and robust test, this research’s conclusions remain the same.

This research also has some limitations. Some M&A announcements are incomplete, and the target has more information missing, resulting in a decrease in the number of samples, which may affect the accuracy of the conclusions. This paper does not address the research of the economic consequences of M&A, namely, the impact of managerial overconfidence and debt capacity on M&A performance. This is one of the future research directions for this paper.

The conclusions of this paper provide new theory evidence for Chinese enterprises' M&A decision-making.

First, enterprises should gradually improve corporate governance structure and governance mechanisms to guide more stakeholders to participate in corporate governance, and also they should strengthen the pre-evaluation, in-process control and post-supervision of managers' behavioral decisions to prevent irrational M&A caused by managerial overconfidence. Especially in private enterprises, this issue should be paid more attention. Second, enterprises should make full use of the debt governance function of creditors and improve the creditors' supervision mechanism for managers' decision-making behavior.

The innovation value and increment contribution of this paper may include the following aspects: the conclusions of this paper expand the research boundary of the relationship between managerial overconfidence and M&A premium, and enrich related literature about debt capacity and the influence of debt capacity on M&A decision-making, and also provide new theory evidence for Chinese enterprises' M&A decision-making. In a word, this research is a beneficial supplement and extension for existing research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the most significant determinants of capital structure of manufacturing firms in India and to investigate whether the capital structure models derived from foreign research provide convincing explanations for capital structure decisions of Indian firms by using multiple regression model.

Different conditional theories of capital structure like trade off theory, pecking order theory and agency theory are reviewed to formulate testable propositions concerning determinants of capital structure of manufacturing firms. Multiple regression model and correlation matrix have been used as statistical tools to investigate the most significant determinants of capital structure of manufacturing firms in India with the help of SPSS Software for a sample of top 100 manufacturing firms listed in BSE.

The results suggest that variables like asset composition, business risk and return on assets are positively related to debt ratio whereas firm size and debt service capacity are negatively related to debt ratio. The asset composition, business risk and return on assets appear to be significant determinants of capital structure, while firm size and debt service capacity are insignificant determinants.

The findings of this study are consistent with predictions of trade off, pecking order and agency theory of finance which helps in understanding financing behaviour of firms in India.

This study has laid some ground work to explore the determinants of capital structure of Indian firms upon which a more detailed evaluation could be based. Furthermore, empirical findings should help corporate managers to make optimal capital structure decisions.

To the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first that explores the most significant determinants of capital structure of manufacturing firms in India by using the most recent data. Moreover, this study also confirms that same factors affect the capital structure decisions of firms in developing countries as identified for firms in developed economies.

This study aims to examine how corporate financial flexibility, financial sector development and the regulatory environment influence corporate investment decisions in an emerging economy after controlling for several macroeconomic factors.

The authors estimated random-effects models to empirically examine the impacts of corporate financial flexibility, banking sector development, equity market development, regulatory quality and corruption on corporate investment decisions. The empirical analysis is based on an unbalanced annual panel data set of a sample of 198 non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange for the period 1992–2018.

The results show that financially flexible firms tend to invest more. The increased banking sector development, stock market development and better regulatory quality play a pivotal role for enabling firms to increase their investment ability. However, the results reveal that corruption acts as a barrier and reduces corporate investments during the examined period. The results suggest that unused borrowing capacity is a good source of financial flexibility. These results strongly support the pecking order theory, which explains why firms incline toward internal sources for financing their investments and why they prefer debt to equity when go for external financing.

The empirical findings of the study enable corporate managers to make better financing and investment decisions by understanding the significance of the attainment and maintenance of the corporate financial flexibility to enhance firm value. Furthermore, the findings enable corporate managers to examine and understand the role of banking sector development (BSD), equity market development (EMD), regulatory quality and the role of corruption in affecting corporate firms' investment ability, allowing them to make appropriate investment decisions, especially from an emerging economy perspective. The findings also help investors in making appropriate investment decisions while they are purchasing financial assets. Finally, the findings of the study have some implications for regulators as well. Specifically, the findings suggest that the authorities should implement economic and financial policies favoring banking sector as well as equity market development to enhance corporate investment.

The study significantly adds to the literature by examining the impact of financial flexibility, financial sector development and regulatory environment on corporate investment decisions. According to the authors' knowledge, the empirical evidence examining the impact of all of these factors on corporate investment is very scarce. Therefore, this study is an effort to fill the gap left in the literature.

Understanding capital structure and its practical implications is important to the professional manager regardless of functional area of expertise. The seminal work in the area of capital structure earned the researchers Nobel Prizes. In subsequent years, researchers have provided much additional and very important work on capital structure theory. Decodes capital structure theory and its implications in a manner useful to the practitioner. Explains the conceptual issues, consequences, and implications. Managers face an uncertain world that does not co‐operate with many of the assumptions of theory. Suggests practical strategies for applying capital structure theory to increase firm value. Relates the attendant choices and management of capital structure to the value generation cycle of the company. Includes a section on the important issues in capital structure for companies in emerging and transition economies.

The main aim of the paper is to examine the small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) capital structure determinants in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania).

The authors used panel models to analyze financial data of 15,253 companies operating in the years 2014–2017.

The authors confirmed the dominant role of firm-specific factors. Industry and country variables explain only 4% of debt variability of the surveyed companies. The direction of influence of the diagnosed firm-specific factors is consistent with the pecking order theory. About one-fourth of SMEs in CEE hold a stock of debt capacity. It negatively affects the share of debt in the capital. The authors did not confirm the influence of the systematic industry business risk.

The limitations of the study are (1) the inclusion of only six CEE countries in the sample; (2) the exclusion of microenterprises from the sample; (3) the capital structure relationships are observed following the applications of static panel; (4) the endogeneity issue has not been addressed in the model.

This study shows that business-friendly institutional environment is an important factor influencing the indebtedness of companies. It increases the leverage and, consequently, the return on equity, especially in CEE countries.

SME analyses in CEE countries are not as frequent as for other regions. Despite the classical determinants of the SMEs' capital structure, the authors have included debt capacity and systematic industry business risk in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determiners to create and destroy value in horizontal mergers and acquisitions (M&A) using accounting indicators supposed to influence the new entity’s value.

Using a sample of 90 French listed companies and stepwise regression method, the authors test eight accounting indicators supposed to influence the new entity’s value.

To create value after a horizontal M&A, it is necessary to concentrate on turnover and the restructuring of charges without neglecting the control of debt capacity. To avoid destroying value after a horizontal M&A, it is necessary to concentrate on the control of debt capacity and restructuring of charges in order to reduce financial charges and financial risk. Horizontal M&A also create value through the reduction of investment costs and through tax optimization.

This paper is different from other contributions in that the majority of existing literature concerning the sources of value creation in M&A has been based on abnormal returns or microeconomic data. This paper analyzes accounting data that are likely to be influenced over the long term by corporate decision making. These kinds of decisions influence the firm’s value as well as the long-term gains that industrial investors may hope to obtain.

This study makes a significant contribution to the existing literature insofar as it seeks to divide the sources of value creation into three categories: sales synergy, cost synergies and hybrid synergies. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is also the first study to provide explanations from companies’ accounting data, which can lead managers to a greater vision of post-merger strategy management, reinforcing the mechanism for value creation.

This paper aims to determine whether local governments (LGs) use non-consolidated municipally owned companies (MOCs), excluded from public sector entities and, consequently, from sub-national debt to avoid fiscal debt limits. This paper contributes to the literature by analysing the fiscal debt rule’s impact on the off-budget municipal activities in total and separate in different types of local government units.

This paper uses difference-in-differences and the system general method of moments model with the Blundell–Bond estimator for dynamic panel data analysis of MOCs owned by 866 Polish municipalities in 2010–2018.

This paper shows that the MOCs’ revenues support limited local public debt capacity by indebtedness restrictions imposed on municipalities in 2014. As a result, less indebted municipalities have higher off-budget revenues. The tightening of fiscal rules related to sub-sovereign indebtedness increased off-budget activities, but that effect is much stronger in rural and rural–urban municipalities than in urban municipalities and big cities.

This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the fiscal debt rule’s impact on the off-budget municipal activities in total and separate in different types of local government units. In this paper, the authors combine theories relating to private and public finance; this is a novel approach and one that is also necessary – as, in fact, the worlds of public and private actors intersect – as exemplified by the existence of MOC.

The purpose of this study was to extend the understanding of restaurant firms’ overall debt and equity financing practices by considering what drives equity financing. More importantly, this study attempted to identify whether an optimal financial leverage point exists in the relationship between debt financing and equity financing for restaurant firms.

This study used fixed-effects regression models with a sample of 1,549 unbalanced firm-year panel data to identify restaurant firms’ financial practices and the impacts of financial constraints.

First, restaurant firms tend to issue long-term debt to pay back existing debt. However, the amount of debt does not exactly match the debt’s maturity. Second, small restaurant firms’ net debt financing, as well as net equity financing, has an inverted-U-shaped relationship with financial leverage. Finally, the effect of financial leverage on external financing significantly differs between small and large restaurant firms.

Restaurant firms routinely use both debt and equity financing interchangeably to manage their financial constraints and target debt ratio. Further, firm size is an important indicator of financial constraints, while equity financing plays an important role in managing an optimal target debt ratio.

This study is unique in that it considers determinants of restaurant firms’ long-term debt financing as well as equity financing. This study also examines differences in long-term debt and equity financing practices between financially constrained and unconstrained firms.