The Impact of Corporate Governance on the Capital Structure of Companies from the Energy Industry. The Case of Poland

Barbara Grabinska, Marcin Kedzior, Dorota Kedzior and Konrad Grabinski
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Barbara Grabinska: Department of Finance and Financial Policy, Cracow University of Economics, 31-510 Cracow, Poland
Marcin Kedzior: Department of Financial Accounting, Cracow University of Economics, 31-510 Cracow, Poland
Dorota Kedzior: Department of Corporate Finance, Cracow University of Economics, 31-510 Cracow, Poland
Konrad Grabinski: Department of Financial Accounting, Cracow University of Economics, 31-510 Cracow, Poland

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 21, 1-25

Abstract: The energy sector is expected to face fundamental challenges in the near future. On the one hand, it is experiencing a rapidly increasing demand for energy. At the same time, it is subject to the pressure of the climate policy due to environmental issues. For the same reason, the energy sector is forced to undertake costly investments to transform production from black to green energy. The issue of financing has become one of the key problems of the energy sector, especially in those countries in which energy production traditionally is based on fossil fuels, i.e., coal. The paper aims to investigate the impact of corporate governance on the capital structure of companies from the energy industry. We use three proxies of corporate governance quality: institutional investors, the board size, and state ownership and investigate their impact on capital structure. Our findings suggest that the latter two negatively impact debt levels. In our model, we control for financial factors and CEO personal characteristics. We use a Polish setting since transformational problems of the energy sector in Poland are especially visible. At the same time, energy companies in Poland are subject to the strict EU climate policy.

Keywords: energy sector; corporate governance; capital structure; theories of capital structure; CEO personal characteristics; financial reporting; emerging markets; Poland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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