Capital structure in the construction industry: theory and practice

Starting with the seminal work of Modigliani and Miller in 1958, various capital structure theories have been set forth by corporate finance researchers, such as the trade-off and financial hierarchy theories. The present research uses data from the survey questionnaire conducted with 158 Turkish construction companies to explain the financial decisions of contractors in terms of capital structure theories. Results reveal that firm age, size, and asset values appear to be positively correlated to debt–equity ratio and the volatility of earnings and cashflows are important determinants of leverage, confirming the trade-off theory. On the other hand, the construction sector clearly follows a financial order consistent with the financial hierarchy theory, but other propositions of the theory are not supported. Overall, it is concluded that capital structure decisions of construction firms cannot fully be explained by the existing models. Rather, firms appear to exploit “windows of opportunity” emerging from changes in macroeconomic indicators, such as interest rates, GDP, and resulting market conditions.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author