Influência da assimetria de informação sobre a estrutura de capital: um estudo comparativo entre empresas brasileiras e norte-americanas no período de 2011 a 2015

Abstract

The capital structure has been studied since the mid-1950s, especially since Durand (1952), and the subject has been explored by Modigliani and Miller (1958), Myers and Majluf (1984), and others, always with different approaches over time. One of the theoretical fronts is the pecking order theory, led by Myers (1984) and Myers and Majluf (1984), which analyzes the influence of information asymmetry on the capital structure of organizations. Therefore, in order to verify the influence of the asymmetry on the capital structure of Brazilian and North American companies from 2011 to 2015, a panel data analysis was carried out, modeling variables linked to information asymmetry to verify if they influenced, or not, the indebtedness of the companies analyzed, in order to respond to the following research problem: "What is the influence of information asymmetry in determining the capital structure of Brazilian and US publicly traded companies in the period from 2011 to 2015?". Thus, it is expected that the study will contribute, in particular, to the accomplishment of the comparative analysis between the mentioned countries, identifying the behavior of the data and the adequacy of the companies to the precepts of the financial theories mentioned, emphasizing that the comparative analysis undertaken is the main gap in the study, given the scarcity of comparative studies within the capital structure. As for main findings, it was verified that the existence of lower information asymmetry indexes led to lower indebtedness in both Brazilian and North American companies, which is recommended by pecking order, that is, it was verified that in fact, the information asymmetry has an influence on corporate indebtedness. However, the beha vior of the variables in Brazilian and North American companies diverges, and not always the variables showed the expected behavior, according to what the theory suggested. In addition, differences in the economic environment, market structure, cost of credit and others may cause a result initially contrary to that predicted by the theory is not necessarily a divergent result. As a practical contribution of the study, when analyzing data from two different countries, a broader view is given, especially for the investor (as an external user of the accounting information) and the administrator (as internal user), about the debt behavior, and on which variables are able to affect this behavior, in particular to assess the influence of the variables related to the asymmetry of information in this theme. With this, it can be verified empirically as relevant business issues, such as corporate governance, influence the directions taken by companies. Finally, although the subject is widely studied, it remains available and with research gaps, with ample space for studies that contribute to the better understanding of the issue.