Financial frictions can pose a barrier to export entry by altering a firm's long-term capital structure. The focus on long-term firm financing is motivated by our empirical finding that exporting firms tend to be more leveraged than non-exporting firms in terms of long-term debt, as distinct from short-term working capital. We explain this fact by marrying a corporate finance model of capital structure, featuring an endogenous choice between equity and long-term debt, with a trade model featuring heterogeneous firms and export entry. The model predicts that exporting firms will prioritize reducing the cost of long-term capital over relaxing a short-term working capital constraint to scale up production.

金融摩擦可能会通过改变公司的长期资本结构而成为出口进入的障碍。对长期公司融资的关注是基于我们的经验发现，即与短期营运资本不同，就长期债务而言，出口公司往往比非出口公司具有更高的杠杆率。我们将资本结构的公司融资模型与股票和长期债务之间的内生选择结合起来，将异质公司和出口准入作为特征的贸易模型加以结合来解释这一事实。该模型预测，出口公司将优先考虑降低长期资本成本，而不是放宽短期营运资本约束以扩大生产。