Does the structure of corporate financing have an impact on corporate behaviour?

Companies can raise financing by equities, bonds or bank credit. Does the structure of corporate financing have an impact on their behaviour? The literature on corporate finance suggests that: Debt imposes discipline on companies and forces them to be well managed to avoid bankruptcy; Financing by equities could lead to an incentive to take risk and innovate in order to increase companies’ return for the shareholders. We will therefore compare, across OECD countries, companies’ financing structure and their: Profitability; Investment drive; Spending on research & development; Capital modernisation. We see: The positive role of equity financing and negative role of credit financing on research & development and automation, which is as expected; The discipline role of credit, as credit financing is associated with high profitability.