Corporate financial structures in India

In this paper, we document the financial structure of a large sample of Indian companies using a unique new company accounts dataset. The data form a panel consisting of the published accounts of more than 1000 Indian companies that reported every year during the period 1989- 1999. They consist of non-financial companies; and, in a new departure within the literature, they include quoted and unquoted companies. We use this dataset to document and characterise developments in company financing in India over the last decade. We compare the sources-uses approach to analysing company financial structures with the asset and liability approach. We use both approaches to compare the financial structures of companies: over time; as between quoted and unquoted companies; and as between companies which belong to a business group and those which do not. Finally, we compare our results to those obtained previously for India and for the major industrial countries in recent studies. Overall, the paper provides a wealth of new information about corporate financial structures in the Indian economy.