As a word of caution, although our findings suggest that demand-side forces influence corporate capital structure policy across
countries, they should not be construed as evidence against the importance of supply-side forces that could also be at work. Previous
research documents that creditor protection increases the willingness of creditors to extend credit and take risk (e.g., Benmelech and
Bergman, 2011; Djankov et al., 2007; Houston et al., 2010). Amore balanced view would be that creditor protection increases both the
willingness of creditors to provide credit and the reluctance of corporations to use debt, but based on our results for a large sample of
countries, the latter (demand-side forces) dominate the former (supply-side forces) in shaping corporate capital structure across
countries.