Credit Rating Change and Capital Structure in Latin America

Abstract This study analyzes the impact of imminent reclassification of credit rating on the decision-making regarding capital structure of non-financial corporations listed in Latin America. Despite the importance attributed by the market agents and the existence of empirical evidence of the effect caused by rating in the capital structure of companies in developed countries, this issue is still incipient in Latin-American countries. For this purpose, all the non-financial corporation owners of, at least one corporate rating issued by an international rating agency were taken into account, wi...