IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intfin/v44y2016icp46-55.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Discouraged borrowers: Evidence for Eurozone SMEs

Author

Listed:
  • Mac an Bhaird, Ciarán
  • Vidal, Javier Sanchez
  • Lucey, Brian

Abstract

This study examines the decision by firm owners not to apply for intermediated debt due to a perception that their application will be rejected for a sample of small firms in 9 European countries. Compared with firms that applied for bank loans, discouraged borrowers are smaller, younger, have declining turnover and an increasing debt to assets ratio. Transmission of macro effects through the banking system and the economic environment also leads to higher levels of discouragement. Higher regulatory quality results in greater borrower discouragement, indicating the importance of regulation and enforcement mechanisms for the efficient functioning of private debt markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Mac an Bhaird, Ciarán & Vidal, Javier Sanchez & Lucey, Brian, 2016. "Discouraged borrowers: Evidence for Eurozone SMEs," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 46-55.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfin:v:44:y:2016:i:c:p:46-55
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2016.04.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1042443116300361
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.intfin.2016.04.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Casey, Eddie & O'Toole, Conor M., 2014. "Bank lending constraints, trade credit and alternative financing during the financial crisis: Evidence from European SMEs," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 173-193.
    2. Emanuele Brancati, 2015. "Innovation financing and the role of relationship lending for SMEs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 449-473, February.
    3. Han, Liang & Fraser, Stuart & Storey, David J., 2009. "Are good or bad borrowers discouraged from applying for loans? Evidence from US small business credit markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 415-424, February.
    4. Djankov, Simeon & McLiesh, Caralee & Shleifer, Andrei, 2007. "Private credit in 129 countries," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 299-329, May.
    5. Vos, Ed & Yeh, Andy Jia-Yuh & Carter, Sara & Tagg, Stephen, 2007. "The happy story of small business financing," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 2648-2672, September.
    6. Martin Brown & Steven Ongena & Alexander Popov & Pinar Yeşin, 2011. "Who needs credit and who gets credit in Eastern Europe? [Interaction terms in logit and probit models]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 26(65), pages 93-130.
    7. Vivek Ghosal & Yang Ye, 2015. "Uncertainty and the employment dynamics of small and large businesses," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 529-558, March.
    8. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Laeven, Luc & Maksimovic, Vojislav, 2006. "The determinants of financing obstacles," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 932-952, October.
    9. Asli Demirgüč-Kunt & Luc Laeven & Ross Levine, 2004. "Regulations, market structure, institutions, and the cost of financial intermediation," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 593-626.
    10. Kon, Y & Storey, D J, 2003. "A Theory of Discouraged Borrowers," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 37-49, August.
    11. Ciarán Mac an Bhaird & Theo Lynn, 2015. "Seeding the cloud: financial bootstrapping in the computer software sector," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1-2), pages 151-170, April.
    12. Bonaccorsi di Patti, Emilia & Dell'Ariccia, Giovanni, 2004. "Bank Competition and Firm Creation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(2), pages 225-251, April.
    13. Wieneke, Axel & Gries, Thomas, 2011. "SME performance in transition economies: The financial regulation and firm-level corruption nexus," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 221-229, June.
    14. Timo Baas & Mechthild Schrooten, 2006. "‘Relationship Banking and SMEs: A Theoretical Analysis’," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 127-137, October.
    15. Ken Cavalluzzo & John Wolken, 2005. "Small Business Loan Turndowns, Personal Wealth, and Discrimination," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(6), pages 2153-2178, November.
    16. Jappelli, Tullio & Pagano, Marco & Bianco, Magda, 2005. "Courts and Banks: Effects of Judicial Enforcement on Credit Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(2), pages 223-244, April.
    17. Levenson, Alec R & Willard, Kristen L, 2000. "Do Firms Get the Financing They Want? Measuring Credit Rationing Experienced by Small Business in the U.S," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 83-94, March.
    18. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Maksimovic, Vojislav, 2004. "Bank Competition and Access to Finance: International Evidence," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(3), pages 627-648, June.
    19. Mac an Bhaird, Ciarán, 2013. "Demand for debt and equity before and after the financial crisis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 105-117.
    20. Erik Canton & Isabel Grilo & Josefa Monteagudo & Peter Zwan, 2013. "Perceived credit constraints in the European Union," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 701-715, October.
    21. Ciarán mac an Bhaird & Brian Lucey, 2010. "Determinants of capital structure in Irish SMEs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 357-375, October.
    22. Doris Neuberger & Solvig Räthke-Döppner, 2015. "The role of demographics in small business loan pricing," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 411-424, February.
    23. Chakravarty, Sugato & Xiang, Meifang, 2013. "The international evidence on discouraged small businesses," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 63-82.
    24. Alexander Popov, 2016. "Monetary Policy, Bank Capital, and Credit Supply: A Role for Discouraged and Informally Rejected Firms," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 12(1), pages 95-141, March.
    25. Sergei A. Davydenko & Julian R. Franks, 2008. "Do Bankruptcy Codes Matter? A Study of Defaults in France, Germany, and the U.K," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 565-608, April.
    26. Nico Dewaelheyns & Cynthia Hulle, 2008. "Legal reform and aggregate small and micro business bankruptcy rates: evidence from the 1997 Belgian bankruptcy code," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 409-424, December.
    27. Mathew L. A. Hayward & Dean A. Shepherd & Dale Griffin, 2006. "A Hubris Theory of Entrepreneurship," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(2), pages 160-172, February.
    28. Diaz-Roldan & Carmelo Monteagudo-Cuerva, 2013. "Fiscal policy under alternative monetary policy regimes," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center, vol. 9(2), pages 1-9, July.
    29. Graham C. Hall & Patrick J. Hutchinson & Nicos Michaelas, 2004. "Determinants of the Capital Structures of European SMEs," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(5‐6), pages 711-728, June.
    30. Maria Psillaki & Nikolaos Daskalakis, 2009. "Are the determinants of capital structure country or firm specific?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 319-333, October.
    31. Adrian Blundell-Wignall, 2012. "Solving the Financial and Sovereign Debt Crisis in Europe," OECD Journal: Financial Market Trends, OECD Publishing, vol. 2011(2), pages 201-224.
    32. Santiago Carbó-Valverde & Francisco Rodríguez-Fernández & Gregory F. Udell, 2009. "Bank Market Power and SME Financing Constraints," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 13(2), pages 309-340.
    33. Julio Pindado & Luis Rodrigues & Chabela Torre, 2006. "How does Financial Distress Affect Small Firms’ Financial Structure?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 26(4), pages 377-391, May.
    34. Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirgüç‐Kunt & Vojislav Maksimovic, 2005. "Financial and Legal Constraints to Growth: Does Firm Size Matter?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 137-177, February.
    35. Bonaccorsi di Patti, Emilia & Dell'Ariccia, Giovanni, 2004. "Bank Competition and Firm Creation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(2), pages 225-251, April.
    36. Graham C. Hall & Patrick J. Hutchinson & Nicos Michaelas, 2004. "Determinants of the Capital Structures of European SMEs," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(5-6), pages 711-728.
    37. ., 2013. "Fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policy," Chapters, in: The Political Economy of Iraq, chapter 13, pages 247-266, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    38. David de Meza & David C. Webb, 1987. "Too Much Investment: A Problem of Asymmetric Information," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(2), pages 281-292.
    39. Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & María Pería, 2011. "Bank Financing for SMEs: Evidence Across Countries and Bank Ownership Types," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 39(1), pages 35-54, April.
    40. Diamond, Douglas W, 1989. "Reputation Acquisition in Debt Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 828-862, August.
    41. Mark Freel & Sara Carter & Stephen Tagg & Colin Mason, 2012. "The latent demand for bank debt: characterizing “discouraged borrowers”," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 399-418, May.
    42. Oya Pinar Ardic & Nataliya Mylenko & Valentina Saltane, 2012. "Access to Finance by Small and Medium Enterprises: a Cross-Country Analysis with A New Data Set," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(4), pages 491-513, October.
    43. Stiglitz, Joseph E & Weiss, Andrew, 1981. "Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 393-410, June.
    44. Steve Mercieca & Klaus Schaeck & Simon Wolfe, 2009. "Bank Market Structure, Competition, and SME Financing Relationships in European Regions," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 36(2), pages 137-155, December.
    45. Concha Artola & Veronique Genre, 2011. "Euro Area SMEs under Financial Constraints: Belief or Reality?," CESifo Working Paper Series 3650, CESifo.
    46. Sarah Holton & Martina Lawless & Fergal McCann, 2014. "Firm credit in the euro area: a tale of three crises," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(2), pages 190-211, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ana Mol-Gómez-Vázquez & Ginés Hernández-Cánovas & Johanna Koëter-Kant, 2019. "Bank market power and the intensity of borrower discouragement: analysis of SMEs across developed and developing European countries," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 211-225, June.
    2. Gabriele Angori & David Aristei, 2020. "Heterogeneity and state dependence in firms’ access to credit: Microevidence from the euro area," SEEDS Working Papers 0220, SEEDS, Sustainability Environmental Economics and Dynamics Studies, revised Feb 2020.
    3. Reto Wernli & Andreas Dietrich, 2022. "Only the brave: improving self-rationing efficiency among discouraged Swiss SMEs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 977-1003, October.
    4. Mallik, Girijasankar & Nguyen, Duc Nguyen & Chowdhury, Anis, 2022. "Does firm size really affect the outcome of loan applications?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 806-820.
    5. Hang Thu Nguyen & Hiep Manh Nguyen & Michael Troege & Anh T. H. Nguyen, 2021. "Debt aversion, education, and credit self-rationing in SMEs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 1125-1143, October.
    6. Mustafa Caglayan & Oleksandr Talavera & Lin Xiong & Jing Zhang, 2022. "What does not kill us makes us stronger: the story of repetitive consumer loan applications," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 46-65, January.
    7. Szabó, Zsolt, 2019. "Elbátortalanodott hiteligénylők a vállalati szektorban [Discouraged borrowers in the corporate sector]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 1145-1186.
    8. Gama, Ana Paula Matias & Duarte, Fábio Dias & Esperança, José Paulo, 2017. "Why discouraged borrowers exist? An empirical (re)examination from less developed countries," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 19-41.
    9. Kallandranis, Christos & Anastasiou, Dimitrios & Drakos, Konstantinos, 2023. "Credit rationing prevalence for Eurozone firms," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    10. Bertrand, Jérémie & Mazza, Paolo, 2022. "Borrowers’ discouragement and creditor information," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    11. Demoussis, Michael & Drakos, Konstantinos & Giannakopoulos, Nicholas, 2016. "The Impact of Sovereign Ratings on Eurozone SMEs Credit Rationing," MPRA Paper 76364, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Geert Campenhout & Tom Caneghem, 2013. "How did the notional interest deduction affect Belgian SMEs’ capital structure?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 351-373, February.
    13. Guillaume Andrieu & Raffaele Staglianò & Peter Zwan, 2018. "Bank debt and trade credit for SMEs in Europe: firm-, industry-, and country-level determinants," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 245-264, June.
    14. Paola Bongini & Annalisa Ferrando & Emanuele Rossi & Monica Rossolini, 2021. "SME access to market-based finance across Eurozone countries," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1667-1697, April.
    15. David Aristei & Gabriele Angori, 2022. "Heterogeneity and state dependence in firms’ access to bank credit," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 47-78, June.
    16. Chakravarty, Sugato & Xiang, Meifang, 2013. "The international evidence on discouraged small businesses," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 63-82.
    17. Michael Demoussis & Konstantinos Drakos & Nicholas Giannakopoulos, 2017. "The impact of sovereign ratings on euro zone SMEs’ credit rationing," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 44(5), pages 745-764, October.
    18. Anastasiou, Dimitris & Kallandranis, Christos & Drakos, Konstantinos, 2022. "Borrower discouragement prevalence for Eurozone SMEs: Investigating the impact of economic sentiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 161-171.
    19. Anoosheh Rostamkalaei & Miwako Nitani & Allan Riding, 2020. "Borrower discouragement: the role of informal turndowns," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 54(1), pages 173-188, January.
    20. Horvath, Akos & Lang, Peter, 2021. "Do loan subsidies boost the real activity of small firms?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).

    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:eee:intfin:v:44:y:2016:i:c:p:46-55. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/intfin .

    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.