Introduction

Firm's financing policy is influenced by firm's characteristics, corporate governance and institutions. A large amount of literature empirically examines that firm's characteristics take effects on firm's financing policy. Recently, much more scholars pay attention to the influences of corporate governance and institutions （Booth et al., 2001; Claessens et al., 2001; Demirguc-Kunt和Maksimovic, 1996, 1998, 1999; Giannetti, 2003）.

Financing structure is a hot difficult topic. Since the independence theory of Modigliani and Miller （1958）, the research lasts almost half a century, but there are many sustainable problems. When choosing to use debt financing, firms make detailed decisions, such as debt maturity, which is an important part of whole financing structure. Different debt maturity has different incentive characteristics. Short term debt may relieve asymmetric information, send message about prospectus, constrain the management, reduce the plunder to creditor, and stop underinvestment and overinvestment. On the other hand, long term debt keeps managers in controls, prevent inefficient expansion, stop deprived value of creditors and lower interest rates. Therefore, arranging suitable maturity debt structure may reduce the agency cost of debt and agency conflicts. To recover the nature of financing structure and influences becomes necessary.

At present, corporate governance is a hot issue, which influences financial policies and behaviors, in which ownership structure is an important part. The separation of control rights and cash flow rights is an important feature of today's equity structure. Previous financial economics connects ownership structure and debt maturity together, but these literature analyses the direct holdings of management or large shareholders, pay no attention to the relationship between the ultimate controlling shareholder and debt maturity structure.

Recently, many research found out that stock controlling of listed companies is concentrated in ultimate shareholders in most countries （La Porta et al., 1999; Claessens et al., 2000; Claessens et al., 2002; Faccio and Lang, 2002）, even in the United States （Anderson and Reeb, 2003）. Research on corporate governance evolves from the paradigm of Berle and Means （1932） to La Porta et al. （1999）. Many literatures researched the ultimate controlling shareholder, which has gradually become the mainstream direction of corporate governance research. So far, how the ultimate controlling shareholders influencing the choice of debt maturity structure remains in question. Previous research does not extend to the ultimate ownership structure on the relationship between ownership structure and debt maturity, therefore, the nature remains a puzzle.

The separation of ownership and control enhances the chance of the ultimate controlling shareholder to expropriate outside investors, and the legal protection of investors can inhibit the plunder ability of ultimate controlling shareholders. In the corporate governance system, the legal protection for investors is a very important issue. In 1990s, corporate governance movement is popular, whose core is by modifying Company Law, Bankruptcy Law and Securities Law, and the introduction of corporate governance standards and a series of ways to improve the legal system of investor protection in order to improve the corporate governance level. Chinese legal system is not perfect, and the policy and the system still plays a leading role in law enforcement, especially corruption in great degree. The development of the legal system in Chinese is not advanced than those of any other emerging market countries （such as India, Pakistan and South Africa）, and is significantly lower than that of British legal system （Allen et al., 2005）. When the legal protection of investors is inadequate, the ultimate controlling shareholders adjust debt policy to enhance the entrenchment effect, and plunder external investor wealth according to their own interests.

Meanwhile, China is under the economic transition, and there is special system background, such as unique ownership structure, imperfect legal protection to investors, the backward market development, the serious government intervention, the relatively backward financial development level. The lack of legal protection of investors and other external governance mechanisms （such as the takeover market, manager market） further exacerbates the agency conflict between controlling shareholder and external investors. Therefore, the maturity structure of debt Chinese listing corporation puzzle is drowsy. In addition, the local government regulation, the level of economic development, the level of financial development, and legal system environment are different in Chinese provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities （collectively referred to as the area）, which provides an opportunity to study the relationship between ultimate shareholder, legal environment and debt maturity structure, and many scholars are interested in the issue of debt maturity structure in Chinese listing corporation.

Based on the empirical research literature on the debt maturity structure theory and its influence factors, the paper analyzes Chinese financing system and the corporate debt maturity structure. According to the theory of debt maturity structure model and the theory of corporate governance, and Chinese institution background, the paper theoretical and empirically analyzes how ultimate controlling shareholder, legal environment to influence the choice of debt maturity structure including debt maturity structure level and debt maturity structure types, using panel data from static and dynamic view. Lastly, according to the results of theoretical and empirical studies, the paper provides policy suggestions for the optimization of debt maturity structure of Chinese listed companies, the formulation of relevant policies of related governmental departments and financial policies of Chinese listed companies, the development of capital market, and the design of corporate governance structure etc. The whole paper is divided into seven chapters：

Chapter 1, Introduction. This chapter discusses about the background and meaning of research, main content and framework, theoretical foundation and methodology. Improvements and innovations are also given.

Chapter 2, Literature review. This chapter systematically reviews the relevant research literature, respectively from the debt maturity structure, the ultimate controlling shareholder and legal environment, discusses the problems and shortcomings in the existing literature existing, and summarizes the research at home and abroad.

Chapter 3, Analysis of the financing system background. This chapter discusses Chinese financing system, mainly from the ultimate ownership structure mode, legal system and capital market and other aspects of analysis, which explains the choice of corporate debt maturity structure, and understand the power behind the factors influencing the debt maturity structure of the companies.

Chapter 4, Analysis of characteristic of debt maturity structure. This chapter analyzes characteristic of debt maturity structure of Chinese listing corporations, and compares with those of other countries （including the industrialized countries and emerging market economies）, to have a whole recognition of Chinese listing corporations.

Chapter 5, Theoretical research on ultimate controlling shareholder, legal environment and the choice of debt maturity structure. According to the theory of debt maturity structure model and the theory of corporate governance, theoretically analyzes the impacts of the ultimate controlling shareholder and legal environmental on debt maturity structure, and puts forward the research hypothesis.

Chapter 6, Empirically research on ultimate controlling shareholder and legal environment and the choice of debt maturity structure. According to the theoretical analysis, the chapter empirically analyzes the impact of the ultimate controlling shareholder and legal environment on the choice of debt maturity structure from the static and dynamic perspective （including debt level and debt maturity type）.

Chapter 7, Conclusion and policy suggestion. Based on above analysis, the main conclusions are summarized, and provide policy recommendations for the optimization of debt maturity structure of Chinese listed companies, the formulation of relevant policies of related governmental departments, financial policies of Chinese listed companies, the development of capital market, and the design of corporate governance structure etc.

The author finds out that：①Chinese listed companies have larger proportion of current debt and smaller proportion of long-term debt in their debt maturity than their counterparts in other countries （including G-7 countries and some developing countries, such as India, Pakistan and Turkey）; ②When the company moves to targeted debt maturity structure, bearing adjustment cost and adjustment process in real-time, debt maturity adjustment costs significantly influence the choice of debt maturity structure. Compared with France, Germany, Chinese listing Corporation debt adjustment cost is relatively higher, and relatively slower of the speed of adjustment. ③The supply side of debt capital （such as banks and other financial institutions） provides different periods of debt financing on corporate governance. The ultimate controlling shareholders is an important factor influencing the choice of debt maturity structure. Cash flow right of the ultimate controlling shareholder is significant positive to debt maturity; the degree of separation of ultimate controlling shareholders' control rights and ownership is significant negative to debt maturity; compared with not separation of the control and ownership, the separated companies have less long-term debt; compared with the ultimate family controlling shareholder, the companies with ultimate state-owned controlling shareholder have much more long-term debt. ④The legal environment of system factors influences the debt maturity structure. The better of legal environment of areas is, the more short-term debt the companies have; the relationship between separation of shareholder's control right and ownership and debt maturity structure is affected by legal environment, the author explains from the Chinese institution.

Improvement and innovation of this book reflected in：

First, combination of the ultimate controlling shareholders and the legal environment to explore the debt maturity structure, and discusses financing structure, corporate governance and institution economics, providing new perspectives to expand the existing research, and enrich system of modern financial theory.

Second, considering the debt adjustment cost, using panel data, construct the two-way effects dynamic adjustment model, empirical test of the relationship between the ultimate controlling shareholder, legal environment and the choice of debt maturity structure on the dynamic perspective. Application of Logit model in two classification and ranking selection model （Ordered choice model）, empirical test of how the ultimate controlling shareholder, legal environment to affect the debt maturity types.

Third, the interaction of ultimate controlling shareholder and legal environment to the debt maturity structure is put into the research framework, in order to reflect the ultimate controlling shareholders how to choose debt maturity structure under the different quality of the institution framework.