Determinants of capital structure: The case in Vietnam

Abstract

This is a quantitative research, underpinned by the philosophy of natural science and deduction approach that examines the impact of the various aspects of corporate governance mechanism on the choice of capital structure of Vietnamese listed firms. We focus on the effect of factors such as the board size, the board independence, and especially different ownership structures, which include the managerial ownership, the state ownership, the concentrated ownership, and the foreign ownership. They are the main scopes of corporate governance and are supposed to be relevant to determine the corporate financing choice. To explain the causal relationship between factors, we construct the regression model and then test it by using different statistical method approaches, including the pooled OLS, the fixed effects model, and the random effects model. Data are collected from 336 firms with shares listed in the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange in Vietnam, totaling 1583 observations. Overall, the results reveal that the board size, state ownership, and concentrated ownership have positive impact on the firm's capital structure, whereas foreign ownership appears to have negative influence on the capital structure. The research does not find evidence of a the correlation between board independence, managerial ownership and corporate capital struture.