Article

Regulation, Renegotiation and Capital Structure: Theory and Evidence from Latin American Transport Concessions

Jean-Jacques Dethier, Alex Moore, and Stéphane Straub

Abstract

The paper examines the capital structure of regulated infrastructure firms. The authors develop a model showing that leverage, the ratio of liabilities to assets, is lower under high-powered regulation and that firms operating under high-powered regulation make proportionally larger reductions in leverage when the cost of debt increases. They test the predictions of the model using an original panel dataset of 124 transport concessions in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru over 1992–2011, finding broad support for their predictions.

Keywords

infrastructure; regulation; capital; leverage; Latin America;

Reference

Jean-Jacques Dethier, Alex Moore, and Stéphane Straub, Regulation, Renegotiation and Capital Structure: Theory and Evidence from Latin American Transport Concessions, Journal of Regulatory Economics, vol. 45, n. 2, 2014, pp. 209–232.

Published in

Journal of Regulatory Economics, vol. 45, n. 2, 2014, pp. 209–232