信息、非正规金融与中小企业融资

各种形式的非正规金融在发展中国家和地区广泛存在。本文认为,由于中小企业信息不透明,且常常不能提供充分的担保或抵押,正规金融机构难以有效克服信息不对称造成的逆向选择问题,而非正规金融则在收集关于中小企业的“软信息”方面具有优势。这种信息优势是非正规金融广泛存在的根本性原因,金融抑制只是一个强化因素,同时非正规金融市场的各种特征也都源于其存在的根本逻辑。本文构建了一个包括异质的中小企业借款者和异质的贷款者(具有不同信息结构的非正规金融和正规金融部门)的金融市场模型,证明非正规金融的存在能够改进整个信贷市场的资金配置效率。

Information, Informal Finance and SME Financing

Informal finance exists extensively and has been playing an important role in SME financing in developing countries. This paper tries to rationalize the extensiveness of informal finance. To do so, a model including formal and informal lenders, high- and low-risk borrowers with or without sufficient collateral is set up. The informal financial lenders have advantage over formal financial institutions in collecting “soft” information about SME borrowers to overcome the information asymmetry. The paper shows that the credit market in which informal finance is eliminated will allocate funds in some inefficient way, and once informal finance is allowed to co-exist with formal finance, the allocation efficiency of credit resources can be improved, a socially optimal outcome is shown here.