The Maturity Structure of Corporate Debt

We provide an empirical examination of the determinants of corporate debt maturity. Our evidence offers strong support for the contracting‐cost hypothesis. Firms that have few growth options, are large, or are regulated have more long‐term debt in their capital structure. We find little evidence that firms use the maturity structure of their debt to signal information to the market. The evidence is consistent, however, with the hypothesis that...