【正文】 本文的結(jié)論是，國家因素決定和影響財務杠桿的選擇，這是世界各地普遍存在的現(xiàn)象，在分析一個國家的資本結(jié)構(gòu)時考慮這些因素是十分有用的。在研究國家因素對財務杠桿的直接影響時，研究數(shù)據(jù)顯示，債權保護、債券市場的發(fā)展狀況和國內(nèi)生產(chǎn)總值增長率三個因素對公司的資本結(jié)構(gòu)有較為顯著的影響。另一方面，我們也觀察到，在一個國家一個或多個公司特定因素和財務杠桿并沒有顯著的相關性。在本文中，我們在世界范圍內(nèi)調(diào)查了企業(yè)特定因素在財務杠桿選擇中的作用。我們的研究結(jié)果表明，以美國上市公司為模型發(fā)展而來的傳統(tǒng)資本結(jié)構(gòu)理論，在類似的擁有較為發(fā)達的法律環(huán)境和高經(jīng)濟水平的國家中也能被很好的利用。在研究國家因素的直接影響時，我們看到，像國內(nèi)生產(chǎn)總值增長率、債券市場發(fā)展程度和債權人權利保護等確定因素能很好地解釋不同國家之間資本結(jié)構(gòu)存在的差異。研究表明，資本結(jié)構(gòu)理論在公司對財務杠桿的決定因素方面對許多國家的公司財務杠桿選擇作出了解釋。國家變量的數(shù)據(jù)收集自多種來源，主要有世界發(fā)展指標數(shù)據(jù)庫文件和世界的金融結(jié)構(gòu)數(shù)據(jù)庫，少數(shù)國家變量取自先前的研究（包括：拉波特等人，1998；克拉森和克拉伯，2002；貝爾科維奇等人，2003）。我們分析了能夠?qū)ω攧崭軛U作用產(chǎn)生影響的公司特定因素的標準，諸如公司規(guī)模、有形資產(chǎn)、盈利能力、經(jīng)營風險、發(fā)展機遇。但是，利用替代回歸模型觀察每個國家的單個企業(yè)資本結(jié)構(gòu)，是不能得到有力的證明。需要注意的是，目前關于國際資本結(jié)構(gòu)的研究都基于一個隱含的假設，即公司特定因素對財務杠桿作用的影響是各國相同的（例如：布茲等人，2001；賈內(nèi)蒂，2003；宋和菲利浦托斯，2004；范等人，2006）。在另一項對30個經(jīng)濟合作及發(fā)展組織的成員國的研究中，宋和菲利浦托斯（2004）表示，在國際資本結(jié)構(gòu)中大部分代表性的變化都是由于公司特定因素、產(chǎn)業(yè)特定因素和國家因素的多相性引起的。最近幾項這方面的研究表明，即使是在像美國和歐洲各國這樣經(jīng)濟發(fā)達的國家，融資政策和管理者行為也會受到制度環(huán)境和國際業(yè)務的影響（例如，格蘭姆和哈維，2001；班賽爾和米凸，2004；布勞恩，德容和科迪克，2006）。此前的研究都沒有系統(tǒng)的研究這些間接影響。一方面，這些因素可以直接影響財務杠桿效率，比如說，一個較為發(fā)達的債券市場促進公眾債券的發(fā)行和交易可能導致公司在該國內(nèi)財務杠桿作用較高，而一個發(fā)達的股票市場就存在相反的作用。通過分析，我們得出了兩個新的結(jié)論，首先，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，公司特有因素的影響在各國都不相同，而以前所做研究的潛在前提是公司特有因素的影響是相同的。 and Brounen, De Jong and Koedijk,2006).The literature specifically discusses only the direct impact of country characteristics on leverage. In an analysis of ten developing countries, Booth et al. (2001) find that capital structure decisions of firms in these countries are affected by the same firmspecific factors as in developed countries. However, they find that there are differences in the way leverage is affected by countryspecific factors such as GDP growth and capital market development. They conclude that more research needs to be done to understand the impact of institutional factors on firms’ capital structure choices. The importance of countryspecific factors in determining cross country capital structure choice of firms is also acknowledged by Fan et al. (2006) who analyze a larger sample of 39 countries. They find a significant impact of a few additional countryspecific factors such as the degree of development in the banking sector, and equity and bond markets. In another study of 30 OECD countries, Song and Philippatos (2004) report that most crosssectional variation in international capital structure is caused by the heterogeneity of firm,industry, and countryspecific determinants. However, they do not find evidence to support the importance of crosscountry legal institutional differences in affecting corporate leverage. Giannetti (2003) argues that the failure to find a significant impact of countryspecific variables may be due to the bias induced in many studies by including only large listed panies. She analyzes a large sample of unlisted firms from eight European countries and finds a significant influence on the leverage of individual firms of a few institutional variables such as creditor protection, stock market development and legal enforcement. Similarly, Hall et al. (2004) analyze a large sample of unlisted firms from eight European countries. They observe cross country variation in the determinants of capital structure and suggest that this variation could be due to different countryspecific variables.A remarkable feature of existing studies on international capital structure is the implicit assumption that the impact of firmspecific factors on leverage is equal across countries (see for example Booth et al., 2001。 Bancel and Mittoo, 2004) finds that a firm’s capital structure is not only influenced by firmspecific factors but also by country specific factors. In this study, we demonstrate that countryspecific factors can affect corporate leverage in two ways. On the one hand, these factors can influence leverage directly. For example, a more devel