Determinants of Capital Structure of Companies Listed in Tehran Stock Exchange; Multilevel Regression Approach(2005-2018)

Abstract

O One of the most critical issues in financial economics is identifying the factors affecting companies' capital structure. It seems that the existence of significant differences between the capital structure of companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange, not only rooted in the macroeconomic conditions as well as firm-specific factors, but also the type of industry in which they are classified affects the capital structure. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate whether factors influencing the capital structure of companies have different impacts on the capital structure of various industries or not? To achieve this goal, the data of companies operating in 8 industries from 2005 to 2018 is the basis for estimating a multi-level panel model that is the first and second levels reflect the firm and industry, respectively, and the third level shows the commodity-oriented industries. The findings reveal that First- the variables of second and third levels are both significant. Second- the variables of profitability, growth opportunity, sanctions and asset structure have a significantly negative effect on financial leverage. Third- inflation and financial distress positively affect financial leverage.

Keywords

• capital structure
• multilevel regression
• trade- off theory