This study scrutinizes the nonlinear relationship between foreign ownership and corporate leverage decisions by applying a panel threshold model to a sample that comprises a balanced panel data set of 1027 Japanese firms. Moreover, this study investigates whether a threshold for the level of foreign ownership moderates the effect of determinants on capital structure. The empirical findings support the existence of a threshold effect for foreign ownership on corporate capital structure and its determinants. Furthermore, our findings have managerial implications for foreign investors with a high level of ownership in that they should mainly use liquidity, profitability, and growth to reduce leverage.

本研究通过将面板阈值模型应用于包含 1027 家日本公司的平衡面板数据集的样本，仔细研究了外资所有权与公司杠杆决策之间的非线性关系。此外，本研究调查了外资所有权水平的阈值是否会调节决定因素对资本结构的影响。实证结果支持外资所有权对公司资本结构及其决定因素的阈值效应的存在。此外，我们的研究结果对拥有高所有权的外国投资者具有管理意义，因为他们应该主要利用流动性、盈利能力和增长来降低杠杆率。