Relative to developed nations, little is known about the capital structure of firms
in developing countries, and in particular China. The capital markets are rapidly
developing in China and future research could be in the following directions. First, this
study focuses on capital choice of Chinese public listed firms and most of these firms
are SOEs. However, 80 per cent of non-listed firms are private firms and it is important
to understand the capital decision of privately owned non-listed firms given their
increasingly important role in the economy. Second, Zingales (2000) highlights the
enhanced importance of human capital in modern corporations, providing a new
perspective when studying capital structure in the future. Third, future study should
look into other factors in a panel data context. For example, the debt-equity ratio is
found to be correlated with aggregate investment and financial crises have a greater
impact on the financing of corporate sectors in emerging markets (Davis and Stone,
2004), and the equilibrium in the corporate debt market is affected by macroeconomic
shocks (de Bandt et al., 2008). Finally, ongoing financial reforms will have significant
impacts on firm financing decision. Allen and Carletti (2013) suggest new theories to
underpin financial reforms, and the impact on capital structure of the development of
new theories should be followed up.