Determinants of Firm Capital Structure: Empirical Evidence From Vietnam

Abstract

The paper aims to investigate the factors affecting firm capital structure in the context of Vietnam. The research sample includes 290 non-financial listed companies on Vietnamese stock market. This study applied Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to explain the research results. The paper investigates six factors influencing on firm capital structure including return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), firm size, tangible assets, risks, and growth. The empirical results show that return on assets, tangible assets, risks, and growth have a statistically significant positive effect on the firm capital structure while return on equity has a statistically significant negative effect on the firm capital structure. In addition, when dividing companies into sectors, the study realized that determinants of capital structure in some sectors are consistent with results for entire sample. Finally, firm size has the same impact on capital structure in oil & gas companies and material companies whereas it is not statistically significant for other companies. These evidences provide a new insight to managers on how to determine the reasonable capital structure.