The Effects of Debt Financing on Manufacturing Firm's Performance in Iran

Despite of lower costs of internal financing, the agency cost theory advises debt financing. The theory is premised on the idea that the interests of the firm’s managers and its shareholders are not perfectly aligned. So, debt financing reduces misallocation of resources in nonprofitable investments and disciplines managerial behavior. So, this paper under the theory investigates impacts of debt financing on manufacturing firm's performance, using a panel of 141 Iranian manufacturing firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange in 20 industries, over the period 1379-1392. Our measures of firm performance are ROA, ROS and TFP (estimated with the Levinsohn and Petrin (2003) method).We examine the effect of debt financing on firm performance using Multi-Level (Mixed) Effects Model and considers industry-level effects and oil depended industries effects. We found that debt financing has positive and significant effect and internal financing has negative and significant effect on firms’ performance. This results prove our hypothesis. Our Findings also confirm that the effects of cutting subsidies and exchange rate fluctuation on firm’s productivity are negative and significant.