The Fi Nancial Crisis and Corporate Debt Maturity: the Role of Banking Structure

Journal of Corporate Finance 35 (2015) 310–328

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Corporate Finance

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jcorpfin

The financial crisis and corporate debt maturity: The role of

banking structure

Víctor M. González ⁎

University of Oviedo, Department of Business Administration, Avda. del Cristo s/n, 33071 Oviedo, Spain

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:

Received 24 February 2015

Received in revised form 1 October 2015

Accepted 3 October 2015

Available online 12 October 2015

JEL classification:

G18

G32

Keywords:

Financial crisis

Debt maturity

Institutions

Banking structure

a b s t r a c t

This paper analyses the influence of the financial crisis on corporate debt maturity for 39 countries during the period 1995–2012. The results reveal the importance of the dependence of

firms on external finance and the banking structure of the countries on debt maturity during

the financial crisis. Corporate debt maturity was found to decline during the financial crisis.

However, only those firms that were more dependent on external finance before the onset

of the financial crisis suffered this reduction. The reduction in corporate debt maturity is the

result of a higher average increase in short-term debt than in long-term debt. The financial crisis had a stronger negative effect on corporate debt maturity in countries with less bank concentration, while the debt maturity of larger firms decreased less as a result of the financial

crisis than the debt maturity of smaller firms in countries where banks play an important

role in the financing of the private sector.

© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The global financial crisis is considered by many economists the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The current crisis has opened up an interesting debate regarding its consequences for the real economy. Financial institutions facing losses may...