Influence of the spanish credit crisis on corporate decisions about leverage, debt providers and investment / Influencia de la crisis crediticia española en las decisiones empresariales sobre endeudamiento, proveedores de deuda e inversión

Abstract

The three articles contained in the thesis focus on the impact of the 2012 Spanish credit and banking crisis upon three key Corporate Finance variables: leverage, debt provider choice and investment. Therefore, the purpose of the thesis is to understand the effect of credit crises on two key decisions for any company: funding - sources of funds - and investment - uses of funds -. The papers provide evidence that the variables under study are not only affected by firm-intrinsic characteristics, but also by supply-side and macroeconomic factors such as credit conditions, access to the debt market and interest rates. Therefore, contrary to classic assumptions which imply that only demand-side factors matter, the first two papers show that supply-side variables also impact leverage and debt choice. The third paper provides evidence that the functioning of credit markets does impact corporate investment and in fact, small and highly levered companies are the ones most affected by credit frictions.