Financial Mismatch, Assets Specificity and Capital Structure

Abstract

At present, the problem of financial mismatch poses great challenge to China’s financial market. Financial mismatch blurs the market governance structure of debt financing, thus distorting the relationship between asset specificity and capital structure. This paper investigates companies listed on the A-share of Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2012 to 2017. It tests the existence of financial mismatch and the impact of financial mismatch on asset specificity and capital structure. Empirical results show that the impact of financial mismatch on the relationship between asset specificity and capital structure of sample companies exhibits no differences in ownership. Both state-owned listed companies and private companies face the same degree of financial mismatch issues, which leads to changes in the property-specific governance structure of assets, and asset specificity is positively related to capital structure.