Financing industrial corporations in a developing economy

Panel evidence from Imperial Russia

Bibliographic Data

ID21604973
AuthorsAndrew Gregg (0000-0002-0456-3455, Middlebury College, corresponding author), Steven Nafziger (0000-0002-7701-4174, Williams College, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume30
Issue2
Pages125-161
Publication date2023-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFinancial History Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0968-5650 • E-ISSN: 1474-0052
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s096856502200018x
OpenAlexW4324380310
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited47

This article explores the financing of early industrial corporations using newly constructed panel data from Imperial Russian balance sheets. We document how corporate capital structures and dividend payout policies reflected internal agency issues, information asymmetries with external investors, life cycle considerations, and other frictions present in the Russian context. In particular, we find that widely held, listed and more profitable corporations were less reliant on debt financing. Asset tangibility was associated with lower debt levels, suggesting that Russian corporate debt was short-term, collateral was largely irrelevant, or agency problems dominated. Finally, we find that many of these same issues, for example ownership structure and access to securities markets, also mattered for financial performance and that dividends may have compensated investors for poor legal protections

Agency cost · Balance sheet · Business · Capital market · Capital structure · Collateral · Corporate governance · Debt · Dividend · Economics · External financing · Financial system · Monetary economics · Panel data · Banking stability, regulation, efficiency · Corporate Finance and Governance · Private Equity and Venture Capital · Finance

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