The Determinants of Financial Structure: New Insights from Business Start‐ups

Business start‐ups lack prior history and reputation, face high failure risk, and have highly concentrated ownership. The resulting information and incentive problems, combined with entrepreneurial private benefits of control, affect initial financing decisions. This paper examines simultaneously the impact of these issues on leverage, debt mix and maturity. We find that start‐ups with high adverse selection and risk shifting problems contract less bank debt but compensate with other debt sources. Start‐ups in growing industries have lower leverage, but raise more bank debt. Entrepreneurs with large private control benefits contract less but longer term bank loans to lower the default probability.     

Determinants of Credit Constraints: Evidence from Sindh,Pakistan

This article investigates the determinants of credit constraints: evidence from Sindh, Pakistan. Cross-sectional farm-level data is collected during November and December 2016. A sample of 180 farm households is selected for interviews by using a multistage, random sampling technique. This study employed a probit regression model, frequency counts, and percentages to analyze the data. Access to formal agricultural credit is relatively low in Sindh province of Pakistan, the findings of the study show that the major constraints comprise distance to the formal credit sources, lending procedure, time lag, and interest rate whereas land ownership has a negative association and reduces the constraints to access formal credit. The findings of this study also show that for efficient allocation of resources, institutional sources of credit preferred to disburse agricultural credits toward educated and young age farmers as they are more inclined to adopt new farm technology for better farm production.     

Trade Credit Management and the Decision to Use Factoring: An Empirical Study

This paper examines the firm's decision to use factoring amongst a cross-sectional sample of 655 manufacturing companies using a rich firm-level database. The paper develops and tests hypotheses that explain this particular choice of credit and financial management policy. We find strong evidence of a 'financing demand' explanation for the use of factoring, and also some support for theories which relate the decision to use a factor to the firm's product characteristics, to market characteristics and to the preferences of the factor (supply constraints). The motivation to use factoring, however, appears to be related more to a demand for asset-based finance from small companies than to firm-level choices about organisational structure.     

Trade Credit Terms Offered by Small Firms: Survey Evidence and Empirical Analysis

Trade credit has been shown to be an important source of short-term finance for smaller firms but small firms are also suppliers of trade credit. There is little empirical evidence on the credit granting decisions of small firms. Previous empirical work (Petersen and Rajan, 1997; and Ng, Smith and Smith, 1999) has focused on credit granting and investment in accounts receivable in larger firms. In this paper we look at the influences on credit granting for the smallest firms, using a sample of firms with an average of 10 employees. As in previous studies we find that product and demand characteristics influence credit terms. Moreover, we find evidence that firm size affects credit extension choices directly by setting limits on the possibilities for economies of scale, but it also impacts indirectly by affecting the firm's access to finance and its bargaining strength vis-à-vis suppliers. The dominant position of larger customers in bargaining with small suppliers constrains the impact of other factors on the firm's choice of credit terms. Small firms are also under pressure to conform to industry norms, although lack of resources can be a limiting factor. Constrained firms may make use of two-part terms in an attempt to improve their cashflow.     

Legal System and Trade Credit: Evidence from Emerging Economies

Using a large-scale, firm-level dataset from 68 emerging economies for the period of 2002–2006 compiled by the World Bank, we find that legal systems have a positive and significant impact on the provision of trade credit. This result is robust to the inclusion of conventional controls used in the literature, to alternate specifications that address endogeneity and measurement error problems, and to different measures of trade credit and legal systems. Legal systems have a larger impact on trade credit for firms with overdraft facilities than for those without overdraft facilities, and the impact of legal systems on trade credit is significant in more developed countries but not in less developed countries.     

Trade Credit Terms: Asymmetric Information and Price Discrimination Evidence From Three Continents

Abstract:   Trade credit terms offer firms contractual solutions to informational asymmetries between buyers and sellers. The credit period permits buyers to reduce uncertainty concerning product quality prior to payment, while the seller can reduce uncertainty concerning buyer payment intentions by prescribing payment before/on delivery or through two‐part payment terms and other mechanisms. Variation in trade credit terms also offers firms price discriminating opportunities. This study, drawing on the responses of 700 large firms in the US, UK and Australia, explores trade credit terms through the twin objectives of reducing information asymmetries and discriminatory pricing. Support is found for both theories.     

Trade Credit,the Financial Crisis,and SME Access to Finance

Mounting evidence indicates that firms, particularly SMEs, suffered from a significant credit crunch during this crisis. We analyze for the first time whether trade credit provided an alternative source of external finance to SMEs during the crisis. Using firm‐level Spanish data we find that credit constrained SMEs depend on trade credit, but not bank loans, and that the intensity of this dependence increased during the financial crisis. Unconstrained firms, in contrast, are dependent on bank loans but not on trade credit.     

The Determinants of Corporate Trade Credit Policies in a Bank‐dominated Financial Environment: the Case of Finnish Small Firms

This paper examines trade credit policies of small firms operating in a bank‐dominated environment (Finland). We find that creditworthiness and access to capital markets are important determinants of trade credit extended by sellers. The level of purchases is positively correlated with the level of accounts payable. Larger and older firms and firms with strong internal financing are less likely to use trade credit, whereas firms with a high ratio of current assets to total assets, and firms subject to loan restructurings use it more. Negative loan decisions by financial intermediaries increase and a close bank‐borrower relationship decreases the probability that a firm does not take advantage of trade credit discounts.     

The Trade Credit Channel of Monetary Policy Transmission: Evidence from Nonfinancial Manufacturing Firms in Turkey

This study investigates the trade credit channel of monetary policy transmission in Turkey by using a large panel of corporate firms and includes detailed information on balance sheets and income statements of firms that regularly reported to the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey during the period 1996-2008. The study suggests that the composition of external finance differs considerably across firm types based on size and export performance under tight and loose financial conditions. Small and medium-size manufacturing firms and firms with a low export share are less likely to have access to bank finance, especially in tight periods. In addition, financially constrained firms with limited access to bank finance (small, low-export-share firms) tend to substitute trade credits for bank loans more aggressively in tight periods as monetary policy tightens. The large volume of trade credit on firms' balance sheets and its positive response to contractionary monetary shocks imply that the trade credit channel might subdue the traditional credit channel of monetary transmission.     

Impact of Trade Credit on Firm Inventory Investment During Financial Crises: Evidence from Latin America

This paper studies whether trade credit is used as a substitute for bank credit in crisis periods in Latin America. The sample is composed of firms listed on the Argentine, Brazilian, and Mexican stock exchanges from 1994 to 2009. For the small firms, the substitution hypothesis was not rejected. However, this hypothesis was not confirmed homogeneously for all the firms during the crises. Unlike Brazilian and Argentine firms, Mexican firms use more cash reserves than trade credit. The big firms tend to use other financing sources. A pattern of trade credit use by sector has not yet been found.     

Bank Lending Standards and Access to Lines of Credit

This paper examines how changes in bank lending standards are related to the availability of bank lines of credit for private and comparable public firms. Overall, we find that access to lines of credit is more contingent on bank lending standards for private than for public firms. The impact of bank lending standards is however asymmetric: while private firms are less likely than public firms to gain access to new lines when credit market conditions are tight, we find no difference between public and private firms in terms of their use or retention of pre‐existing lines. We also find that private firms without lines of credit use more trade credit when bank lending standards are tight, which is suggestive of a supply effect. Overall, the evidence suggests that “credit crunches” are likely to have a disproportionate impact on private firms. However, pre‐existing banking relationships appear to mitigate the impact of these contractions on private firms.     

Intra Day Bid‐Ask Spreads, Trading Volume and Volatility: Recent Empirical Evidence from the London Stock Exchange

With the benefit of very high frequency (25 million 1 minute observations) and recent data (2001) for the UK, this paper explores a number of intra day patterns of stock market behaviour. More specifically, a distinct reverse J shaped bid‐ask spread pattern is noted for SETS securities, a declining bid‐ask spread pattern for non‐SETS securities, a two hump pattern for trading volume and a U‐shaped pattern for returns volatility for all securities. In terms of complementing the existing literature, the paper shows that differences in trading systems may affect the bid‐ask spread patterns, while differences in market environments (i.e. US and UK markets) seems to affect the trading volume pattern. The paper suggests avenues for future research, in particular, the need to consider what factors are significant in determining intra day patterns for different trading systems and the need for additional cross‐market comparisons to identify how institutional factors affect the behaviour of investors on an intra day basis.     

Stock Index‐linked Debt and Shareholder Value: Evidence from the Paris Bourse

French banks and non‐financial companies issue index‐linked debt whose value at maturity is indexed to the CAC 40 or to a basket of European indices. This paper examines stock announcement effects associated with these bonds on three dates: the date the issuer's General Assembly decides future capital needs, the publication in the journal of the COB (the stock market board), and the issue date. We find the issuance of index‐linked debt has significant positive announcement effects on the issue date, which we attribute to its market‐completion property. In order to examine further whether market completion is at play, we decompose the value of the bond at issue into its straight bond and option values. We determine that the bonds are overvalued again supporting market completion.     

Credit Availability and Asset Pricing Dynamics in Illiquid Markets: Evidence from Commercial Real Estate Markets

This article examines credit frictions and asset pricing in public and private markets with varying liquidity. We find that a tightening in credit availability is negatively related to subsequent price movements in private and public commercial real estate markets. Assets trading in illiquid segments of these markets are also susceptible to a feedback effect whereby changes in asset prices predict subsequent changes in credit availability. Controlling for investor demand, our findings suggest credit constraints play an economically significant asset pricing role in markets that are both highly levered and relatively illiquid.     

征信市场乱象的根源及治理路径探究——来自新疆喀什地区的证据

征信系统在防范和化解金融风险、维护金融稳定方面发挥着重要作用.治理征信市场乱象是当前征信市场面临的一项紧迫任务.基于新疆喀什地区问卷调查数据,从服务需求端入手,探析征信市场乱象的根源及治理路径.研究发现,金融业态、信贷需求倾向、"道德风险"倾向、个体逾期倾向是催生征信市场乱象的主要因素.建议采取强化征信宣传,树立正确的...     

Glamour Acquirers, Method of Payment and Post‐acquisition Performance: The UK Evidence

We study the effect of different acquirer types, defined by financial status and their payment methods, on their short and long‐term performance, in terms of abnormal returns using a variety of benchmark models. For a sample of 519 UK acquirers during 1983–95, we examine the abnormal return performance of acquirers based on their pre‐bid financial status as either glamour or value acquirers using both the price to earnings (PE) ratio and market to book value ratio (MTBV). Value acquirers outperform glamour acquirers in the three‐year post‐acquisition period. One interpretation is that glamour firms have overvalued equity and tend to exploit their status and use it more often than cash to finance their acquisitions. As we move from glamour to value acquirers, there is a greater use of cash. Our results are broadly consistent with those for the US reported by Rau and Vermaelen (1998). However, in contrast to their study, we find stronger support for the method of payment hypothesis than for extrapolation hypothesis. Cash acquirers generate higher returns than equity acquirers, irrespective of their glamour/ value status. Our conclusions, based on four benchmark models for abnormal returns, suggest that stock markets in both the US and the UK may share a similar proclivity for over‐extrapolation of past performance, at least in the bid period. They also tend to reassess acquirer performance in the post‐acquisition period and correct this overextrapolation. These results have implications for the behavioural aspects of capital markets in both countries.     

Effect of the Sovereign Credit Ratings in East Asia Countries: Evidence from Panel Vector Autoregression

We study the effect of the sovereign credit ratings on the economies of seven East Asian countries, applying panel vector autoregression (VAR). We find that rating has less effect than outlook of rating on the credit default swap (CDS) spreads, the stock indexes, and the GDP growth rates. Rating upgrade and positive outlook have stronger effects than rating downgrade and negative outlook, and the effects of positive outlook and rating are greater after the financial crisis. There is evidence of contagion in that the economic variables of a country seem to have been affected by the outlooks of the other countries.     

Credit Scoring and the Availability of Small Business Credit in Low‐ and Moderate‐Income Areas

This paper estimates that credit scoring is associated with about a $3,900 increase in small business lending per sample banking organization, per low‐ and moderate‐income (LMI) area served, and this effect is roughly equivalent to that estimated for higher‐income areas. For our sample, this corresponds to a $536 million increase in small business credit in LMI areas in 1997 than otherwise would have been the case. This effect appears to be driven by increased out‐of‐market lending by banking organizations, as in‐market lending generally declines. Overall, it does not appear that credit scoring has a disparate impact on LMI areas.