We test the effect of institutional quality on capital structure in the microfinance setting. In doing this, we rely on data from 532 microfinance institutions (MFIs) located in 73 countries dotted across the six microfinance regions in the world. We observe that institutional quality exhibits a robust negative and statistically significant relationship with capital structure in both the short and long run, implying that MFIs in countries with a better institutional environment are less likely to utilize more debt. Our moderation analysis furnishes us with evidence that the presence of women on the board of an MFI significantly moderates the relationship between institutional quality and its capital structure. We show that in the presence of more female representation on the boards of MFIs, the tendency of MFIs using less debt is higher.

中文翻译：

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小额信贷机构的制度质量和资本结构：董事会性别多元化的调节作用

我们在小额信贷环境中测试了制度质量对资本结构的影响。在此过程中，我们依赖来自分布在全球六个小额信贷地区的 73 个国家/地区的 532 家小额信贷机构 (MFI) 的数据。我们观察到，从短期和长期来看，制度质量与资本结构呈现出强大的负相关且具有统计学意义，这意味着在制度环境较好的国家，小额信贷机构利用更多债务的可能性较小。我们的适度分析为我们提供了证据，表明女性在 MFI 董事会中的存在显着缓和了机构质量与其资本结构之间的关系。我们表明，在小额信贷机构董事会中有更多女性代表的情况下，小额信贷机构使用较少债务的趋势更高。