Marijana Ćurak

The Influence of Age on Firm Performance: Evidence from the Croatian Food Industry

The question of whether larger (and/or older) firms are more profitable than their smaller counterparts has been in interest of numerous researchers for decades. Large amounts of theoretical as well as empirical research in different disciplines (economics, strategic management, finance) have been conducted in order to demystify this relationship. However, while some authors found a positive influence of firm size on its performance, the others found this relationship to be negative or non-existent. With regards to the firm age, the interest in this variable began to grow in parallel with the studies that included firm age as an explanatory factor in investigations of determinants of firm performance i.e. business success. Although some theoretical explanations regarding the higher/lower level of profitability achieved by older firms are offered, due to the scarcity of empirical researches, no Abstract

Corporate capital structure: the case of large Croatian companies

Abstract A growing body of research literature deals with the debt policy decisions of companies. Although the subject of corporate capital structure has been intriguing scientists for a number of years, very little research has been conducted on the sample of companies in an emerging market environment such as Croatia. The objective of this article is to identify the main determinants of capital structure in case of large companies in Croatia during the period from 2001–2010. The chosen set of explanatory variables is driven by firm-specific (internal) characteristics and is additionally extended by macroeconomic (external) features. The results obtained by dynamic panel data methodology reveal that neither of the two competing theories exclusively and completely explain the financing behaviour of the analysed companies, and that inflation and development of the banking sector are important factors that affect the corporate leverage level.