Country Factors and Dynamic Capital Structure in Latin American Firms

We develop partial adjustment and duration models to test the relevance of country idiosyncrasies in determining the capital structure of publicly-traded Brazilian, Chilean and Mexican firms. Our data panel, ranging from the 4th quarter of 1996 to the 2nd quarter of 2010, consists of 4403 firm-quarter observations pertaining to 139 firms. Our findings suggest that capital structure dynamics vary by country, local idiosyncrasies are key determinants of firms’ leverage among Brazilian, Chilean and Mexican firms, and that factors other than firm-specific characteristics influence the financing decision processes of Latin American managers