Capital Market Financing by Firms in the Arab World

This research project intends to examine which and how many firms from the Arab World obtain capital market financing in domestic and international capital markets. It also plans to study whether there are differences in the financing in domestic and international markets and in equity and bond financing. Using a large international dataset on firm-level domestic and international issuances of equities and bonds during 1991-2011, matched with different attributes for 45,527 listed firms from 51 countries during 2003-2011, the authors can study how many firms and which firms issue equity and bonds, and for the latter how long their borrowing is. The research will compare the performance of firms from Arab countries (and in particular resource-rich economies) with firms from other developed and developing countries in terms of growth performance. This analysis should help in the understanding of how firms from Arab and other countries access short- and long-term financing and addresses useful questions such as: which markets (domestic or international) do firms use to access long-term funds? How have those evolved? How many firms use long-term markets? Are longer-term issuers different? Are there differences between firms from high-income, developing countries, and Arab countries? How did the global financial crisis affect the main trends on each of these markets?