Role of Credit Rating in determining Capital structure: Evidence from Non-Financial sector of Pakistan

This paper aims to examine the impact of external credit ratings on the financial decisions of the firms in Pakistan. This study uses the annual data of 70 non-financial firms for the period 2012-2018. It uses ordinary least square (OLS) to estimate the impact of credit rating on capital structure. The results show that rated firm has a high level of leverage. Moreover, Profitability and tanagability are also found to be a significantly negative determinant of the capital structure, whereas, size of the firm has a significant positive relationship with the capital structure of the firm. Besides, there exists a non-linear relationship between the credit rating and the capital structure. The rated firms have higher leverage as compared to the non-rated firms. The high and low rated firms have a low level of leverage, while mid rated firms have a higher leverage ratio. The finding of the study have practical implications for the manager; they can have easier access to the financial market by just having a credit rating no matter high or low. Policymakers must stress upon the rating agencies to keep improving themselves as their rating severs as the measure to judge the creditworthiness of the firm by both the investors and management as well.