摘要：We study the capital structure dynamics of Central and Eastern European firms to get a better
understanding of the quantitative and qualitative development of the financial systems in this region.
The dynamic model used endogenises the target leverage as well as the adjustment speed. It is applied
to microeconomic data for 10 countries. We find that during the transition process firms generally
increased their leverage, lowering the gap between actual and target leverage. Profitability and age are
the most robust determinants of capital structure targets. While banking system development has in
general enabled firms to get closer to their leverage targets, information asymmetries between firms
and banks are still important. As a result, firms prefer internal finance above bank debt (pecking order
behaviour) and adjust leverage only slowly.
关键词：capital structure dynamics, transition economies, financial system development
