Determinants of Capital Structure: Experience of Indian Banking Sector

A company's proportion of short and long-term debt is considered when analyzing capital structure. Capital structure is firm's debt-to-equity ratio, which provides insight into how risky a company is. Capital structure decisions are related to finding out an optimum capital structure for the shareholders of the firms. This study explores on the capital structure for banks listed on the BANKEX index in India. The present study has two objectives: Firstly, to identify important determinants of capital structure and secondly to test for the applicability of trade-off and pecking order theories based on sample data drawn from the Indian Banking Industry for the ten year period 2000-01 to 2009-10. Multiple Regression Analysis has been carried out taking total debt to equity ratio as the dependent variable. Profitability, liquidity, asset structure and business risk were found as important determinants for capital structure. On the basis of the signs of the regression coefficients pecking order theory has been found to be applicable, rather than trade-off theory, a position upheld by other empirical research works in the area.