Alan A. Bevan

TL;DR: In this paper, the determinants of FDI from Western countries, mainly in the European Union (EU), to Central and Eastern European ones were studied using a panel dataset of bilateral flows of foreign direct investment (FDI).

TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of different dimensions of the newly created institutional framework in East European transition economies on foreign direct investment (FDI) was analyzed using a dataset detailing FDI flows from individual market economies to transition ones.

Abstract: Prior research on capital structure by Rajan and Zingales (1995) suggests that the level of gearing in UK companies is positively related to size and tangibility, and negatively correlated with profitability and the level of growth opportunities. However, as argued by Harris and Raviv (1991), ‘The interpretation of results must be tempered by an awareness of the difficulties involved in measuring both leverage and the explanatory variables of interest’. In this study the focus is on the difficulties of measuring gearing, and the sensitivity of Rajan and Zingales' results to variations in gearing measures are tested. Based on an analysis of the capital structure of 822 UK companies, Rajan and Zingales' results are found to be highly definitional-dependent. The determinants of gearing appear to vary significantly, depending upon which component of debt is being analysed. In particular, significant differences are found in the determinants of long- and short-term forms of debt. Given that trade credit and eq...

TL;DR: This article analyzed the determinants of the capital structure of 1054 UK companies from 1991 to 1997, and the extent to which the influence of these determinants are affected by time-invariant firm-specific heterogeneity.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse the dynamics in the capital structure for UK companies from 1991 to 1997 and observe significant changes in the relative importance of the various debt elements over time, as well as the relationship between gearing and the level of growth opportunities, company size, profitability and tangibility.