The Corporate Debt Maturity Choice: Evidence from an Early and Unregulated Market.

Corporate debt maturity is a basic concept in corporate finance that determines when cash flows are paid out to debt holders. While corporate bonds are increasing in size worldwide since the late 1990s we still know very little as to what exactly determines the corporate debt maturity choice. In order to enhance our understanding of corporate debt maturity, we go back in time to pre-WW1 Belgium, a time when corporate bonds took on a significant part of corporate balance sheets for the first time.

Keywords:DEBT MATURITY, CAPITAL STRUCTURE, BRUSSELS STOCK EXCHANGE

Disciplines:Financial economics, Economic history