Leverage and corporate investment – a cross country analysis

This study aims to determine the effect of mediation decisions on investment, and financing decisions influence the company’s risk and dividend policy on firm value. The unit of analysis in this research is company property and real estate sectors listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange continuously for 9 years (2001-2008) that have a complete financial report on the study period. This research study using descriptive analysis and inferentsial to prove examine the relationship between the study variables with the five structural models using WarpPLS. This study is basically to analyze the patterns of relationships between variables in order to determine the effect of directly or indirectly, a set of independent variables (exogenous) to the dependent variable (endogenous). The company’s risk and investment decisions are able to increase the value of the company, while the dividend policy and funding decisions are not able to increase the value of the company, the study was conducted at the companies in the sectors of property and real estate, then this study better developed for other sectors that have different characteristics. Originality from this research is the populations in this study were the companies in the sectors of property and real estate with specific criteria Indonesia and the data used in this study were secondary data obtained from the Indonesia Stock Exchange in the form of financial statements.

This research is aimed at analyzing the causality puzzle on the correlation between financial leverage and systematic risk (beta). Financial leverage and beta are usually considered as two proxies of risk derived from different domains: one ends at financial decision outcome, and the other points to market. Cross-sectionally, this result does not support the moderating-variable impact of size on the relation between financial leverage and systematic risk. On the other hand, however, the moderating-variable impact of industry and operating leverage (to some extent) on the relation between financial leverage and systematic risk were well documented. Inter-temporally, financial leverage is significantly and symmetrically related to beta, not moderated by size and operating leverage. This means that the two variables show bidirectional causality. This study contributes to the new insight that financial leverage and beta are the two variables with bidirectional causality, showing that in the long run, risks from fundamental (financial/micro-economy) and from market (macro-economy) are tightly linked to each other inter-temporally.

In recent years, the aviation industry in the Asia-Pacific region has experienced rapid growth. Despite facing thin and volatile profit margins, the region’s airlines continue to expand their capacity by using high financial leverage, raising concerns of whether they are utilizing such financial leverage effectively and how it affects their stock performance. Using the global Malmquist productivity index and the conditional value-at-risk measure, this study investigates the financial performance of 22 Asia-Pacific-based airlines during 2016–2019. The empirical results reveal that only three full-service airlines were able to maintain continued improvement in financial efficiency during the sample period. The excessive use of financial leverage among low-cost carriers is documented. To assess the sources of financial inefficiency, this study decomposed the global Malmquist productivity index into two components: efficiency change and technical change. The results show that while there was a trend toward efficiency catch-up among the carriers, the number of airlines that demonstrated sufficient technical change declined significantly, indicating the need to implement technological innovation to deliver better financial outcomes. Regarding the airline’s stock return performance, airlines that achieved continuously superior performance in deploying financial resources also saw the lowest downside risk in their stock returns, reinforcing the importance of devoting more attention to indebtedness and the effectiveness with which financial resources are used. The findings of this study offer suggestions to airlines in managing their capital structure and enhancing their financial stability.