The determinants of corporate cost of debt during a financial crisis

Panel data from publicly listed US industrial firms is used to investigate how firm-specific cost of debt (COD) determinants impact COD at different quantiles during a financial crisis. Six COD determinants: firm size, firm age, profitability, leverage, liquidity, and firm value, and advanced estimators: robust and bootstrapped fixed effects, bias-corrected least square dummy variable (LSDVC), and quantile regression, are employed within the context of pecking-order theory. The results show that firm size and leverage negatively impact COD, while liquidity positively impacts it when COD is high (90% quantile). The degree of profitability only confirms the pecking order theory when COD is extremely low (10% quantile) and contrasts with the theory for the 25% and above COD quantiles during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). These findings confirm that the practicalities of access to finance matter during a financial crisis for corporate financing decisions.