- Original authors / creators
- Junzhou Xu; Ling Zhang
- Original publication
- PLOS One · Public Library of Science · 2025-09-02
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- CC BY 4.0
© 2025 Xu, Zhang
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This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Article-specific license URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ - Edition changes
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- Evidence limits
- Adjacent research, not a directly sampled family-office study. Applicability to a family office requires separate assessment. To address potential endogeneity issues—such as reverse causality between marketization and capital structure, or omitted variable bias—we adopt an instrumental variable (IV) approach. Following Ma et al. (2022) and related literature [36], we use the firm’s registered location (i.e., province) as an instrumental variable, given that marketization levels vary substantially across provinces and evolve independently of individual firm decisions. Finally, these insights are relevant for other emerging and developing countries, particularly those with hybrid ownership systems or gradual privatization efforts. China’s case illustrates the importance of aligning institutional development with financial liberalization [29]. This study has some limitations. Due to data constraints, industry-specific factors such as competition intensity and firm age were not included, which may affect the model’s explanatory power. Future research could incorporate these variables, apply mixed-method approaches, or conduct cross-country comparisons to assess the generalizability of the U-shaped relationship between marketization and leverage. Overall, the findings offer valuable insights for China and other emerging economies undergoing institutional transitions.
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