Prior literature argues that, given the existence of information asymmetries and agency costs, higher competition may increase financial constraints by reducing banks' incentives to build lending relationships. Using a sample of listed firms for six Latin American countries, we analyze the relation between banking competition and financial constraints. We find evidence in line with prior research that banking competition increases financial constraints. This result is robust and heterogeneous. We include other country-specific variables and check the robustness of our findings; the main results hold. Our results show that the effect of competition differs across firms and industries. Specifically, consistent with the information hypothesis, the negative impact of competition is higher for small quoted firms and for lowassets tangibility industries. Also, as expected, we find evidence that firms are more affected by financial constraints during the last crisis. This negative effect is larger for firms in more competitive banking industries.

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Purpose The authors aim to analyze whether the adoption of IFRS accounting standards in Chilean capital markets affects the earnings conservatism of the firms that adopt them. Design/methodology/approach Using a conditional earnings conservatism model, the authors compare the conservatism of the firms by periods of using or not using IFRS standards for a sample of 95 listed Chilean firms between 1999 and 2010. Findings The authors’ results show that conditional earnings conservatism is more pronounced under IFRS standards and suggest that the use of IFRS improves the relevance and reliability of the reported accounting information. Originality/value The authors provide new evidence from a Latin‐American emerging market and they shed some light on the potential effect of IFRS implementation for several Latin‐American countries that are in the on‐going process of convergence.

Background: The use of derivative instruments, as corporate policy to hedge financial risks has a positive impact on the firm value. However, in countries characterized by weak legal protection of the investors' rights and ownership structures highly concentrated, like in Chile, majority shareholders could use this policy to extract wealth from minority shareholders. Methods: Using the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), this paper analyzes a panel of 133 nonfinancial companies listed on the Santiago de Chile Stock Exchange between 2008 and 2013. Results: The results indicate a positive and statistically significant relationship between the amount of derivatives used and the company value. However, this evidence is conditioned when the majority shareholder (s) keep the control of the company. If the main shareholder or the three major shareholders hold more than 67% of the outstanding shares, then the relationship between the amount of derivatives used and firm value is negative. Conclusion: In analyzing the dynamics between the ownership concentration and the use of derivatives, we findout that when the majority shareholders and the

Este artículo analiza empíricamente la influencia de las Administradoras de Fondos de Pensión (AFP) como principales accionistas institucionales, sobre las decisiones de estructura de capital de la empresa chilena. Estos inversionistas pueden influir en la estructura de capital mediante distintos papeles como los de monitoreo a la gestión y de recopilación y transferencia de información al mercado. El análisis es desarrollado durante el periodo 2009-2011 para una muestra de 109 empresas chilenas que cotizan en la bolsa. Las AFP no sólo participan en el mercado accionario sino que también compiten por la deuda pública, por lo que nuestros resultados son relevantes al indicar la positiva influencia de este tipo de inversionistas en la contratación y emisión de deuda, particularmente la pública