Title: Financial leverage and corporate performance: does the duration of the debt ratio matters?

Authors: Kingsley Opoku Appiah; Prince Gyimah; Yakubu Abdul-Razak

Addresses: School of Business, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana ' Department of Accounting Studies Education, University of Education, Winneba, Kumasi-Campus, Kumasi, Ghana ' Finance Section, Lister Hospital and Fertility Centre, Airport Hills, Off Spentex Road, Cantonments – Accra, Ghana

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between financial leverage and performance of listed firms in an emerging market, Ghana. Specifically, we examine the link between short-term, long-term and total debts on performance. We use data of 190 firm-year observations from 19 listed firms over a period of ten years (2005-2014). Fixed and random effects regression models are used to examine the financial leverage-corporate performance nexus. The result shows that total debt to total assets is negatively related to accounting and market performance. Short-term debt to total assets is also negatively related to return on assets and Tobin's Q but not return on equity. The long-term debt to total assets is negative and insignificantly related to corporate performance. Our contribution is that; short-term debt diminishes shareholder value in the developing economy context.

Keywords: capital structure; shareholder value; short-term debt; long-term debt; total debt; Ghana Stock Exchange; GSE.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBEM.2020.106200

International Journal of Business and Emerging Markets, 2020 Vol.12 No.1, pp.31 - 45

Received: 14 Feb 2019
Accepted: 28 May 2019
Published online: 01 Apr 2020 *

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