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Capital Structure and Political Risk in an Emerging Market: Evidence from Companies Listed on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius

Cashman, Harrison and Scheiler (2014) stated that companies with less political risk will use more debts than other organisations in other countries with more exposure to political risk. In particular, when there are low political risks, there will be more leverage and when there is high political uncertainty, there will be low debts indicating a negative relationship between financial leverage and political risk (Cashman, 2015). To this effect, this study will investigate the link between capital structure and political risk in an emerging market such as Mauritius. The data sample includes 30 financial and non- financial companies listed on the Stock exchange of Mauritius over a time frame ranging from 2011 to 2015 with a total number of 135 observations. The political risk was based on two World Bank indicators, namely political change index and corruption perceptions index. Based on a panel regression model, the empirical results show an insignificant relationship between financial leverage and political risk. In particular, it is implied that there is little evidence on the importance of political risk on firms’ decision in Mauritius due to the fact that Mauritian companies consider other types of risks to be more relevant when taking on more debts. The study adds to the existing literature on emerging markets and highlights the specificity of the Mauritian equity market relative to other developed markets.