SFS Cavalcade North America 2026
Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia
May 18-21, 2026
Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 18th Apr 2026, 05:00:43am EDT
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Agenda Overview |
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Track TH2-5: Capital Structure, Debt, and Valuation
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Corporate Debt Structure Around the World 1Imperial College Business School; 2University of Lausanne; 3Bocconi University We reconstruct the debt ownership structure of 10,136 firms in 52 countries over 2002-2021. Contrary to prior literature, debt ownership is most concentrated in civil-law countries and most dispersed in common-law countries. This result is driven by junior arm’s-length debt dispersion. Where investor protection is stronger, dispersed arm’s-length debt coexists with concentrated bank debt. In weaker investor protection environments firms rely more on short-maturity and USD-denominated borrowing. These patterns are most pronounced among small-to-medium firms, whereas the largest exhibit dispersed debt ownership by international investors almost irrespective of country of incorporation. Our results support legal origin and financial contracting theories.
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