Corporate debt maturity profiles

Jaewon Choi, Dirk Hackbarth, Josef Zechner

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We study a novel aspect of a firm's capital structure, namely, the profile of its debt maturity dates. In a simple theoretical framework we show that the dispersion of debt maturities constitutes an important dimension of capital structure choice, driven by firm characteristics and debt rollover risk. Guided by these predictions we establish two main empirical results. First, using an exogenous shock to rollover risk, we document a significant increase in maturity dispersion for firms that need to roll over maturing debt. Second, we find strong support that maturities of newly issued debt are influenced by pre-existing maturity profiles.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)484-502
Number of pages19
JournalJournal of Financial Economics
Volume130
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2018

Keywords

  • Capital structure
  • Debt maturity
  • Debt structure

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Accounting
  • Finance
  • Economics and Econometrics
  • Strategy and Management

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