The determinants of capital structure: evidence from Dutch panel data

This paper studies the determinants of capital structure choice of Dutch firms. Our main objective is to investigate whether and to what extent the main capital structure theories can explain capital structure choice of Dutch firms. A better understanding of the capital structure determinants in a rela-tively small yet open industrialized economy is essential not only for enrich-ing empirical studies in this field, but also for the purpose of cross country asset evaluation. By estimating a panel data model explaining both the ab-solute level of leverage with respect to various factors and the year-to-year changes in leverage with respect to the changes of various factors, we find evidence suggesting the relevance of the pecking order hypothesis in ex-plaining the financing choice of Dutch firms, which implies the importance of asymmetric information models in explaining capital structure choice of Dutch firms. We argue that factors based on agency costs and corporate con-trol considerations are relatively unimportant for the Dutch case.