TITLE:
Structural Characteristics of Leverage Ratio of China’s Non-Financial Enterprises during COVID-19
AUTHORS:
Lixu Xie, Junjie Wang
KEYWORDS:
Capital Structure, Leverage Heterogeneity, COVID-19, Non-Financial Enterprises
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Business and Management,
Vol.14 No.6,
October
19,
2026
ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the structural characteristics of the financial leverage ratios of non-financial enterprises in China during the COVID-19 period using 2296 A-share listed companies from 2016q1 to 2022q4. It finds that the leverage ratio of non-financial enterprises increased significantly during the pandemic, and the leverage growth shows heterogeneity across industries, firm sizes, and profitability levels: Most industries’ leverage ratios exhibited significant growth, while the real estate remained stable and the comprehensive industry experienced a leverage decline, which may be caused by the combined effects of the characteristics of the epidemic impact, internal decision-making of enterprises, and external policy intervention; The smaller the enterprise size, the faster its leverage grows, which leads to a convergence trend between different size groups; The leverage of firms in the lowest ROA group increased more rapidly compared to the other three groups. These findings provide empirical evidence for understanding the heterogeneous impact of exogenous shocks on corporate capital structure, and offer policy implications for targeted deleveraging and financial risk prevention in the post-pandemic era.