IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cbi/qtbart/y2016m03p77-91.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Irish SME Investment in Economic Recovery

Author

Listed:
  • Carroll, James

    (Central Bank of Ireland)

  • Mooney, Paul

    (Central Bank of Ireland)

  • O'Toole, Conor

    (Central Bank of Ireland)

Abstract

Following dramatic declines during the crisis, capital investment expenditure is increasing rapidly in Ireland. However, little is known about SME investment levels, the extent to which this is driven by improved economic conditions, and how their investment is financed. Using cross-sectional survey data, we find that the share of SMEs investing has increased steadily since 2012, and currently about a third of SMEs are investing in each six month period. Larger firms, exporters and innovators are more likely to invest. However, over the last three years, the share of smaller, domestically-focused enterprises investing has increased at a faster rate. We find a strong link between regional unemployment rates and SME investment. However, this relationship only holds for more domestically-orientated firms. As the unemployment rate has decreased, these findings provide some evidence to link macroeconomic improvements to the observed pick-up in investment activity of SMEs. Finally, we explore the funding mix for new SME investments. Internal funding/retained earnings account for the highest share, with bank financing and leasing together accounting for less than twenty per cent.

Suggested Citation

  • Carroll, James & Mooney, Paul & O'Toole, Conor, 2016. "Irish SME Investment in Economic Recovery," Quarterly Bulletin Articles, Central Bank of Ireland, pages 77-91, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cbi:qtbart:y:2016:m:03:p:77-91
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://centralbank.ie/docs/default-source/publications/quarterly-bulletins/qb-archive/2016/quarterly-bulletin-no-2-2016.pdf?sfvrsn=10#page=75
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Holton, Sarah & McCann, Fergal, 2012. "Irish SME credit supply and demand: comparisons across surveys and countries," Economic Letters 08/EL/12, Central Bank of Ireland.
    2. Petra Gerlach-Kristen & Brian O'Connell & Conor O'Toole, 2015. "Do Credit Constraints Affect SME Investment and Employment?," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 46(1), pages 51-86.
    3. Conor M. O'Toole & Martina Lawless & Derek Lambert, 2015. "Non-Bank Financing in Ireland: A Comparative Perspective," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 46(1), pages 133-161.
    4. Lawless, Martina & McCann, Fergal & O'Toole, Conor, 2013. "The importance of banks in SME financing: Ireland in a European context," Economic Letters 05/EL/13, Central Bank of Ireland.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. McQuinn, Kieran & O’Toole, Conor & Economides, Philip, 2018. "Quarterly Economic Commentary, Autumn 2018," Forecasting Report, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number QEC, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lawless, Martina & O’Connell, Brian & O’Toole, Conor, 2015. "SME recovery following a financial crisis: Does debt overhang matter?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 45-59.
    2. O’Toole, Conor & Hennessy, Thia, 2015. "Do decoupled payments affect investment financing constraints? Evidence from Irish agriculture," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 67-75.
    3. McQuinn, Kieran & O’Toole, Conor & Economides, Philip, 2018. "Quarterly Economic Commentary, Autumn 2018," Forecasting Report, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number QEC, June.
    4. Cantillon, Leona & Gargan, Eric & Kren, Janez & Lawless, Martina & O'Toole, Conor, 2022. "Recent trends in SME investment in Ireland: exploring the pandemic and barriers to growth," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number SUSTAT113, June.
    5. Zhang, Wen & Yan, Shaoshan & Li, Jian & Tian, Xin & Yoshida, Taketoshi, 2022. "Credit risk prediction of SMEs in supply chain finance by fusing demographic and behavioral data," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    6. Lawless, Martina & O’Toole, Conor & Slaymaker, Rachel, 2018. "Estimating an SME investment gap and the contribution of financing frictions," Papers WP589, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    7. Lawless, Martina & McCann, Fergal & O'Toole, Conor, 2013. "The importance of banks in SME financing: Ireland in a European context," Economic Letters 05/EL/13, Central Bank of Ireland.
    8. Robert Kelly & Eoin Brien & Rebecca Stuart, 2015. "A long-run survival analysis of corporate liquidations in Ireland," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 671-683, March.
    9. Cussen, Mary & O'Leary, Brídín, 2013. "Why are Irish Non-Financial Corporations so Indebted?," Quarterly Bulletin Articles, Central Bank of Ireland, pages 104-118, January.
    10. Wellalage, Nirosha Hewa & Locke, Stuart, 2020. "Formal credit and innovation: Is there a uniform relationship across types of innovation?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 1-15.
    11. Cornille, David & Rycx, François & Tojerow, Ilan, 2018. "Heterogeneous Effects of Credit Constraints on SMEs’ Employment: Evidence from the Great Recession," GLO Discussion Paper Series 169, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    12. repec:esr:wpaper:rn2013/1/3 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Clancy, Daragh & Merola, Rossana, 2014. "The effect of macroprudential policy on endogenous credit cycles," Research Technical Papers 15/RT/14, Central Bank of Ireland.
    14. International Monetary Fund, 2016. "Ireland: Financial Sector Assessment Program: Technical Note-Nonbank Sector Stability Analyses," IMF Staff Country Reports 2016/317, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Lawless, Martina & Martinez-Cillero, Maria & O'Toole, Conor, 2021. "SME investment determinants and financing constraints: A stochastic frontier approach," Papers WP699, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    16. McInerney, Niall, 2019. "Macroprudential Policy, Banking and the Real Estate Sector," MPRA Paper 91777, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. David Cornille & François Rycx & Ilan Tojerow, 2017. "The employment consequences of SMEs’ credit constraints in the wake of the great recession," Working Paper Research 333, National Bank of Belgium.
    18. Cornille, David & Rycx, François & Tojerow, Ilan, 2019. "Heterogeneous effects of credit constraints on SMEs’ employment: Evidence from the European sovereign debt crisis," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 1-13.
    19. Baser, Onur, 2021. "Population density index and its use for distribution of Covid-19: A case study using Turkish data," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(2), pages 148-154.
    20. Marie Finnegan & Supriya Kapoor, 2023. "ECB unconventional monetary policy and SME access to finance," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 1253-1288, October.
    21. Cussen, Mary, 2015. "New Insights from the Enhancements to Quarterly Financial Accounts," Quarterly Bulletin Articles, Central Bank of Ireland, pages 91-101, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cbi:qtbart:y:2016:m:03:p:77-91. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Fiona Farrelly (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cbigvie.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.