DETERMINANTS OF CAPITAL STRUCTURE: EVIDENCE FROM MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

he overall objective of the study was to investigate determinant factors affecting the capital structure of manufacturing firms in Ethiopia. The study employed explanatory research design and quantitative research approach. Secondary data were collected from 81 manufacturing firms’ financial statement (2015 to 2020) to achieve the objective of the study.The study was targeted on manufacturing firms in Ethiopia. However, for the accessibility of data the author specifically focused on large tax paying manufacturing firms and simple random sampling technique was used to select sample of 81 large tax paying manufacturing firms among the total population of 102. Finally, after collecting the relevant data, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and OLS model were used to analyze the data. The study found that profitability, firm size, firm growth, liquidity and volatility in foreign exchange are found very important in determining the variation in capital structure of manufacturing firms in Ethiopia during the study period under consideration. Specifically, from the firm specific factors; firm growth, asset tangibility, and firm size were found positively affecting the capital structure in the manufacturing industry during the study period while profitability and liquidity found negatively influencing capital structure. In other side among the macro economic variables, volatility in foreign exchange were found positively affecting the capital structure. The researcher recommends that it is better to manufacturing firms to increase debt capacity in proportion to tangible asset because the tangible asset is used as collateral and provides security to lender in occurrence of financial stress. Furthermore, the researcher recommends that it is advisable to take in to account the suggestions of pecking order theory and static trade of theory since these theories are more pertinent to the capital structure decision of Ethiopian manufacturing firm