Our main analysis focuses on the effect of creditor rights on the level of leverage. Here, we go further to examine the effect of
creditor rights on the tendency of firms to issue debt. We hypothesize that if demand-side forces are significant, firms will be less
willing to issue long-term debt for fear of losing control in the event of financial distress (H3a) and hence the importance of
long-term debt in financing investments will decline (H3b).