Subsidiary Financing Choices: The Roles of Institutional Distances from Home Countries

We examine how the institutional distance between home and host countries is associated with the characteristics of foreign subsidiary debt, including leverage, debt maturity choices, and cash holdings.We utilize the multidimensionality of institutional distances to examine ten different distance dimensions. We use a sample of 3,139 foreign subsidiaries operating in France and being headquartered in 44 different countries. We find that while subsidiaries’ financing choices are partially explained by standard determinants, they are also significantly associated with different forms of institutional distance. Regarding the heterogeneity of institutional distances, results show the dominance of financial and cultural distances for leverage levels; knowledge and political distances for debt maturities; and a dominance of demographic, geographic, and political distances for cash holdings levels

Keywords: Capital structure, Debt maturity, Institutional distance, Liability of foreignness, Subsidiaries financing

JEL Classification: G15, G30, G32

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Du, Yan and Goodell, John W. and Piljak, Vanja and Vulanovic, Milos, Subsidiary Financing Choices: The Roles of Institutional Distances from Home Countries (February 21, 2020). International Review of Financial Analysis, Vol. 83, No. 102280, 2022 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irfa.2022.102280 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3530824 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3530824