Capital structure under collusion

We analyze the financial leverage of firms that collude to soften product market competition, by forming a cartel. We find that cartel firms have lower leverage during collusion periods. This is consistent with the idea that cartel firms strategically reduce leverage to make their cartels more stabl...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Ferrés, Daniel, Ormazabal, Gaizka, Povel, Paul, Sertsios, Giorgio
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:Uruguay
Institución:Universidad de Montevideo
Repositorio:REDUM
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:redum.um.edu.uy:20.500.12806/1394
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12806/1394
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfi.2020.100854
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Capital structure
Financial leverage
Collusion
Cartels
Descripción
Sumario:We analyze the financial leverage of firms that collude to soften product market competition, by forming a cartel. We find that cartel firms have lower leverage during collusion periods. This is consistent with the idea that cartel firms strategically reduce leverage to make their cartels more stable, because high leverage makes deviations from a cartel agreement more attractive. Given that cartels have a large economic footprint, their study is also relevant for the capital structure literature, which has largely ignored the role of anti-competitive behavior.