Corporate Boards and the Leverage and Debt Maturity Choices

36 Pages Posted: 16 Mar 2006

See all articles by Jarrad Harford

Jarrad Harford

University of Washington; European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Kai Li

University of British Columbia (UBC) - Sauder School of Business; Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER); China Academy of Financial Research (CAFR); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI); Canadian Sustainable Finance Network (CSFN)

Xinlei Shelly Zhao

Government of the United States of America - Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) - Risk Analysis Division

Date Written: February 2007

Abstract

Debt, and in particular, short-term debt have the potential to discipline managers. We examine the role of the board in making financing decisions that provide this discipline. Specifically, given a firm's characteristics, we predict that stronger boards will force the firm to hold more debt and more short-term debt. Employing a rich dataset of board characteristics and controlling for other aspects of a firm's corporate governance, we find support for these hypotheses. Our simple measure of director power is a robust and promising measure of internal governance.

Keywords: leverage, debt maturity, board effectiveness, incentive alignment, director power, governance

JEL Classification: G32, G34

Suggested Citation

Harford, Jarrad and Li, Kai and Zhao, Xinlei, Corporate Boards and the Leverage and Debt Maturity Choices (February 2007). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=891300 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.891300

Jarrad Harford (Contact Author)

University of Washington ( email )

Box 353226
Seattle, WA 98195-3226
United States
206-543-4796 (Phone)
206-543-7472 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://faculty.washington.edu/jarrad/

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
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1000 Brussels
Belgium

Kai Li

University of British Columbia (UBC) - Sauder School of Business ( email )

2053 Main Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
Canada
604-822-8353 (Phone)
604-822-4695 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/view/kaili/home

Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER) ( email )

BIZ 2 Storey 4, 04-05
1 Business Link
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Singapore

China Academy of Financial Research (CAFR) ( email )

1954 Huashan Road
Shanghai P.R.China, 200030
China

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

Canadian Sustainable Finance Network (CSFN) ( email )

Queens University
Kingston, ON
Canada

HOME PAGE: http://https://smith.queensu.ca/centres/isf/research/network.php

Xinlei Zhao

Government of the United States of America - Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) - Risk Analysis Division ( email )

400 7th Street SW
Washington, DC 20219
United States

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