TITLE:
COVID-19, Supply Chain Finance and the Speed of Leverage Adjustment: Evidence from Chinese Listed Firms
AUTHORS:
Lixu Xie, Junjie Wang, Liangming Xu
KEYWORDS:
COVID-19, Capital Structure, Leverage Adjustment, Supply Chain Finance, Dynamic Capital Structure
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Industrial and Business Management,
Vol.16 No.10,
October
21,
2026
ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the speed of corporate leverage adjustment, with a particular focus on the moderating role of supply chain finance (SCF), using a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2016 to 2022. Employing a standard partial adjustment model, it finds that COVID-19 significantly slows down the speed of leverage adjustment, and this inhibitory effect is more pronounced for underleveraged firms than for overleveraged firms. Moreover, SCF effectively mitigates the negative impact of the pandemic, with a much greater mitigating effect for underleveraged firms than for overleveraged firms. Our findings remain robust after addressing endogeneity and random factor concerns. This study provides new evidence on the economic consequences of COVID-19 from a capital structure dynamics perspective, and offers practical insights for SCF development and corporate capital structure optimization amid external shocks.