Abstract: Based on the agency cost theory and the trade-off theory, this paper firstly builds a theoretical model to illustrate the effects of economic policy uncertainty on corporate debt maturity structure. Then it uses the quarterly data of China’s listed companies from 2007 to 2021 to conduct empirical tests. The findings of the theoretical model indicate that banks issue long-term loans tofirmswhen economic policy uncertainty is low and short-term loans to firms when economic policy uncertainty is high. The empirical study confirms the conclusion of the theoretical model: with the raising of economic policy uncertainty, the proportion of long term debt will first rise then descend. Considering the endogenous problems such as measurement error and omitted variables, the above conclusion is still significantly valid. The heterogeneity analysis reveals that the critical value of the effects of economic policy uncertainty on the proportion of long-term debt from positive to negative is lower in small firms, private firms and firms located in the regions with low degree of marketization, while it is higher in large firms, state-owned firms and firms located in regions with higher degree of marketization.

Key words: economic policy uncertainty, corporate debt maturity structure, firm heterogeneity