Abstract:
Capital structure is the mixture of debt and equity which a company uses to finance its long term
activities. The capital structure problem is, perhaps, one of the prime areas of attraction for
many researchers in the area of finance. In addition to this, the determinants of capital structure
and its effects on the capital structure decision are up until now an unsolved problem, hence the
importance of capital structure decision for selecting for construction companies in Amhara
Region for the purpose of investigating capital structure with its determinants. In connection with
this, the study adopted a quantitative approach and hence, to discover what determines capital
structure, seven explanatory variables (growth, tangibility, profitability, liquidity, age, effective tax
rate and size) were selected and regressed against the leverage (debt to asset ratio) specifically, the
data required for the variables was collected from the financial statements of 12 sample
construction companies in Amhara Region for a period of 2013-2019. In analyzing the data, the
researcher is used STATA version 15, application software. In the same manner, the study used a
fixed effect regression model. The major findings of the study revealed that growth, tangibility,
profitability, liquidity and, size variables are statistically significant determinants of capital
structure in the case of construction companies of Amhara Region. Among this tangibility,
profitability, liquidity and size variables are statistically significant at 1% significance level
where as growth variable are statistically significant at 5% significance level. The leverage ratio
of construction companies in Amhara Region is highly depends on these statistically significant
variables like growth, tangibility, profitability, liquidity and size. The study recommend that, in
carrying out their debt financing decision, construction companies in Amhara Region should
carefully ascertain and properly measure the influence of those significant variables like growth,
tangibility, profitability, liquidity and size, on the leverage in order to set the best possible mix of
debt and equity that maximum their value. The originality of this study is, to the researcher's
knowledge, this is the first study that explores the determinants of capital structure of construction
companies in Amhara Region by using the most recent data.