Financial Constraints,Institutions, and Firm Productivity: Evidence from China

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates whether Chinese firms utilize trade credit as an alternative financial intermediation to alleviate financial constraints, and whether trade credit matters for firm productivity. The results show that trade credit significantly affects firm productivity in private and foreign-owned firms but not state-owned enterprises, indicating that trade credit is an efficient financial intermediation for non-state firms. Second, trade credit better helps firms that have severe financial constraints grow. Third, the mechanism of trade credit and TFP is by the substitution effect of cash flow, the smoothing effect of working capital and the drive of innovation. Finally, the impact of trade credit on productivity is driven by the regions under a more institutionally developed environment.     

国际征信数据跨境流动规则的比较研究——基于欧盟和美国的规则和实践

随着我国对外经济交往日趋频繁,对外贸易发展迅速,如何更多地了解国外贸易合作方、防范对外贸易风险已成为一个现实而紧迫的问题。如何在征信立法中制定和完善有关征信数据跨境流动的法律规则,以实现数据保护与国际接轨,现实意义尤为重要。     

Funding Liquidity without Banks: Evidence from a Shock to the Cost of Very Short‐Term Debt

In 2011, Colombia instituted a tax on repayment of bank loans, which increased the cost of short‐term bank credit more than long‐term credit. Firms responded by cutting short‐term loans for liquidity management purposes and increasing the use of cash and trade credit. In industries in which trade credit is more accessible (based on U.S. Compustat firms), we find substitution into accounts payable and little effect on cash and investment. Where trade credit is less available, firms increase cash and cut investment. Thus, trade credit provides an alternative source of liquidity that can insulate some firms from bank liquidity shocks.     

Credit channel,trade credit channel,and inventory investment: Evidence from a panel of UK firms

In this paper, we use a panel of 609 UK firms over the period 1980–2000 to test for the existence of a trade credit channel of transmission of monetary policy, and for whether this channel plays an offsetting effect on the traditional credit channel. We estimate error-correction inventory investment equations augmented with the coverage ratio and the trade credit to assets ratio, differentiating the effects of the latter variables across firms more or less likely to face financing constraints, and firms making a high or low use of trade credit. Our results suggest that both the credit and the trade credit channels operate in the UK, and that the latter channel tends to weaken the former.     

Trade credit and bank credit: Evidence from recent financial crises

This paper studies the effect of financial crises on trade credit for a sample of 890 firms in six emerging economies. Although the provision of trade credit increases right after a crisis, it contracts in the following months and years. Firms that are financially more vulnerable to crises extend less trade credit to their customers. We argue that the decline in aggregate trade credit ratios is driven by the reduction in the supply of trade credit that follows a bank credit crunch, consistent with the “redistribution view” of trade credit provision, whereby bank credit is redistributed via trade credit from financially stronger firms to weaker firms.     

Trade credit provision and national culture

In this paper we investigate the relation between trade credit provision and national culture as captured by Hofstede's four cultural dimensions (collectivism/individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity/femininity). Consistent with our predictions based on several theories of trade credit, we find that after controlling for firm- and country-level factors as well as industry effects, trade credit provision is higher in countries with higher collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity scores. These results are robust to using alternative measures of culture and trade credit, alternative sample compositions, and alternative estimation methods, as well as to addressing potential endogeneity concerns. International trade openness, however, mitigates the relation between trade credit provision and our proxies for national culture.     

商业信用、融资约束与公司价值

以我国 A 股非金融类上市公司为样本,就商业信用变动对公司价值的影响进行分析,并以投资效率损失作为融资约束程度分类标准,对融资约束程度不同公司的商业信用变动的边际价值进行对比分析。研究发现：商业信用有利于提高公司价值;融资约束公司的商业信用变动的边际价值小于非融资约束公司;对于融资约束类公司,商业信用变动的边际价值会随着商业信用存量的增加而增加;而对于非融资约束类公司,商业信用变动的边际价值会随着商业信用存量的增加而减小。     

东盟十国征信市场发展概况、特征及启示

随着中国与第一大贸易伙伴东盟之间的双边贸易与投资往来日益频繁,跨境征信合作成为中国与东盟企业、金融机构信息互通及共享的迫切需求,但国内对东盟的征信业鲜有研究,跨境征信合作缺乏"支点".通过梳理新加坡、马来西亚、印度尼西亚等东盟十国的征信市场发展情况,总结近年来东盟征信行业动态特征,分析中国与东盟国家间现行的征信信息跨境...     

Trade credit,collateral liquidation,and borrowing constraints

Assuming that firms’ suppliers are better able to extract value from the liquidation of assets in default and have an information advantage over other creditors, the paper derives six predictions on the use of trade credit. (1) Financially unconstrained firms (with unused bank credit lines) take trade credit to exploit the supplier's liquidation advantage. (2) If inputs purchased on account are sufficiently liquid, the reliance on trade credit does not depend on credit rationing. (3) Firms buying goods make more purchases on account than those buying services, while suppliers of services offer more trade credit than those of standardized goods. (4) Suppliers lend inputs to their customers but not cash. (5) Greater reliance on trade credit is associated with more intensive use of tangible inputs. (6) Better creditor protection decreases both the use of trade credit and input tangibility.     

Corporate social responsibility and provision of trade credit

In this article, we identify and examine three different views of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the relationship between CSR and firms’ provision of trade credit. The trust view of CSR argues that CSR and trade credit provision are related positively, because CSR, as a trust-enhancing device, complements the incomplete contract nature of trade credit. The CSR literature shows that CSR firms tend to have higher cash holdings. With this in mind, the precautionary motive view of CSR suggests that cash holdings serve as a hedge against trade credit risk, while, on the other hand, the substitution view of CSR predicts that cash hoarding discourages the provision of trade credit. Using a dataset of 20,591 firm-year observations from 1991 to 2015, we find strong evidence that supports both the trust and substitution views of CSR but not the precautionary view of CSR.     

The signaling role of trade credit: Evidence from a counterfactual analysis

We quantify the signaling effect of trade credit on bank credit in a sample of US firms. Our identification strategy relies on the signaling model by Biais and Gollier (1997) and accounts for the endogeneity due to the possibility of self-selection and the simultaneity between banks’ and firms’ credit decisions. We find that: (i) firms’ self-select into trade credit; (ii) firms’ decision to use trade credit results in a higher chance of obtaining bank credit and a lower cost than the counterfactual ones they would have faced if not using trade credit.     

Trade Credit Risk Management: The Role of Executive Risk‐Taking Incentives

In this study we investigate how executive equity incentives affect companies’ risk‐taking behavior in relationships with their customers. We hypothesize and find that executive risk‐taking incentives provided by options are positively related to the degree of trade credit riskiness measured both as the amount of total trade credit a firm extends to all its customers and as the amount of trade credit a firm extends to customers with a high probability of default. We also find that the measures of trade credit riskiness are positively related to the firm's future stock return volatility, suggesting that the customer default risk inherent in customer‐supplier trade credit relationships represents an important economic source of the overall supplier‐firm riskiness. The findings of the study provide insights into why firms facing financial difficulties are not denied trade credit.     

Gender bias in access to trade credit: Firm-level evidence from emerging markets

How do small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) led by women fare with respect to obtaining trade credit? While both trade credit and bank credit have long been viewed as potentially important financing instruments for SMEs, there is considerable ambiguity in the existing literature as to whether they complement or substitute each other from the perspective of credit-seeking SMEs. This is even more important for Women-Led Businesses (WLBs) in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) who tend to face higher severity of credit constraints relative to their male counterparts. Given this context, using firm-level data on 95 EMDEs over 2009–2020, we contribute to the literature on gender bias and credit access by examining three specific questions: First, is there a gender bias in obtaining inter-firm trade credit? Second, if there is one, can those WLBs with access to traditional bank finance use it as a signal to obtain trade credit? Third, how does this relationship hold for SMEs that are women-led? After tackling potential endogeneity bias, our empirical findings show that WLBs are less likely to obtain inter-firm trade credit relative to their male counterparts, although we observe that this bias tends to disappear when WLBs have received an institutional source of financing. We establish robustly that bank credit can act as a signaling device enabling the accessibility of inter-firm trade credit, suggesting a complementary relationship between trade credit and bank credit for WLBs.     

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.     

Supplier Financing and Earnings Quality

In this paper we investigate the effect of earnings quality on supplier credit in a sample of small and medium‐sized firms. After controlling for other determinants of trade credit, we show that firms whose earnings present lower variability, higher smoothing and predictability, and higher accruals quality have access to more trade credit from suppliers. This association suggests that earnings attributes associated to lower volatility and higher precision with respect to cash flows facilitate access to trade credit.     

National culture and small firms' use of trade credit: Evidence from Europe

We examine the use of trade credit in Western Europe by relying on a sample of 182,296 small firms for the period 2003–2013. Building on information asymmetry theory, we explore how a country's culture can impact SMEs use of trade credit. We discover that countries' cultural norms play a key role in explaining trade credit differences in Europe. We find that in countries with high power distance, high individualism, high masculinity, and high uncertainty avoidance rely more on trade credit.     

Bargaining power and trade credit

This paper investigates how the supplier's bargaining power affects trade credit supply. We use a novel firm-level database of Chinese firms with unique information on the amount, terms, and payment history of trade credit extended to customers and detailed information on product market structure and clients-supplier relationships. We document that suppliers with weak bargaining power towards their customers are more likely to extend trade credit, have a larger share of goods sold on credit, and offer a longer payment period before imposing penalties. Important customers extend the payment period beyond what has been offered by their supplier and generate overdue payments. Furthermore, weak bargaining power suppliers are less likely to offer trade credit when credit-constrained by banks. Our findings suggest that suppliers use trade credit as a competitive device in the product market.     

Confucian Culture and Trade Credit: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies

This paper examines the effect of cultural factors on the use of trade credit, an important non-formal financial channel. Using a sample of Chinese listed companies from 2007–2017, we find that firms headquartered in regions with a stronger Confucianism atmosphere can obtain more trade credit than their peers elsewhere. Further, the positive association between Confucianism and trade credit is more prominent for non-state-owned enterprises and firms located in regions with underdeveloped financial markets. Overall, our results highlight that Confucian culture—as an implicit value norm and an ethical philosophy—plays an important positive role in fostering honesty, and thus, promoting the use of trade credit. It enriches the literature on the determinants of trade credit and provides insights on the impact of Confucianism on corporate behavior and its underlying mechanism.     

美国贸易信贷统计制度对我国的启示

贸易信贷作为国际收支统计的重要内容之一,其统计方式和数据归集影响着统计部门对国际收支形势的研判.本文通过介绍美国贸易信贷统计制度的主要内容,指出我国当前贸易信贷统计制度上亟需改进的地方,并就此提出相关具体措施.     

How Do Firms Choose Between Intermediary and Supplier Finance?

This paper examines firms’ short‐term financing choices between intermediated loans and trade credit. I test two sets of empirical hypotheses: 1) hypotheses concerning the cross‐sectional differences in the level of intermediary finance for firms that use different levels of trade credit and 2) hypotheses concerning the dynamics of trade credit growth. I find strong evidence that for firms with high agency costs, the use of trade credit facilitates access to conventional bank loans. The evidence is consistent with theories based on the signaling role of trade credit provision and suppliers’ liquidation advantage.