IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/poleco/v77y2023ics017626802200115x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Democracy favors access to credit of firms

Author

Listed:
  • Osei-Tutu, Francis
  • Weill, Laurent

Abstract

Access to credit is one of the main obstacles for the growth of firms. We test the hypothesis that democracy exerts an impact on access to credit. We perform regressions at the firm-level on a large dataset of 46,000 firms in 108 countries. We find evidence of a negative relationship between democracy and credit constraints for firms. We further establish that democracy contributes to reduce borrower discouragement and leads to more bank loan approval decisions. Our key finding is therefore that democracy favors firms' access to credit. Our work contributes to the debate on the impact of democracy on economic development by considering one firm-level channel of transmission.

Suggested Citation

  • Osei-Tutu, Francis & Weill, Laurent, 2023. "Democracy favors access to credit of firms," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:77:y:2023:i:c:s017626802200115x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2022.102312
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S017626802200115X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2022.102312?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. Rainer Haselmann & Paul Wachtel, 2010. "Institutions and Bank Behavior: Legal Environment, Legal Perception, and the Composition of Bank Lending," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(5), pages 965-984, August.
    2. Giavazzi, Francesco & Tabellini, Guido, 2005. "Economic and political liberalizations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1297-1330, October.
    3. Djankov, Simeon & McLiesh, Caralee & Shleifer, Andrei, 2007. "Private credit in 129 countries," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 299-329, May.
    4. Paola Giuliano & Prachi Mishra & Antonio Spilimbergo, 2013. "Democracy and Reforms: Evidence from a New Dataset," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 179-204, October.
    5. Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Maria Soledad Martinez Peria, 2008. "Banking Services for Everyone? Barriers to Bank Access and Use around the World," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 22(3), pages 397-430, November.
    6. Gatti, Roberta & Love, Inessa, 2006. "Does access to credit improve productivity ? Evidence from Bulgarian firms," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3921, The World Bank.
    7. Popov, Alexander, 2014. "Credit constraints and investment in human capital: Training evidence from transition economies," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 76-100.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Aterido, Reyes & Beck, Thorsten & Iacovone, Leonardo, 2013. "Access to Finance in Sub-Saharan Africa: Is There a Gender Gap?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 102-120.
    11. Daron Acemoglu & Suresh Naidu & Pascual Restrepo & James A. Robinson, 2019. "Democracy Does Cause Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 47-100.
    12. Rode, Martin & Gwartney, James D., 2012. "Does democratization facilitate economic liberalization?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 607-619.
    13. Delis, Manthos D. & Hasan, Iftekhar & Ongena, Steven, 2020. "Democracy and credit," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 571-596.
    14. A. Colin Cameron & Douglas L. Miller, 2015. "A Practitioner’s Guide to Cluster-Robust Inference," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 317-372.
    15. Djankov, Simeon & McLiesh, Caralee & Nenova, Tatiana & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "Who Owns the Media?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(2), pages 341-381, October.
    16. Magnus Henrekson & Dan Johansson, 2010. "Gazelles as job creators: a survey and interpretation of the evidence," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 227-244, September.
    17. Elias Papaioannou & Gregorios Siourounis, 2008. "Democratisation and Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(532), pages 1520-1551, October.
    18. Bahamonde, Hector & Trasberg, Mart, 2021. "Inclusive institutions, unequal outcomes: Democracy, state capacity, and income inequality," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    19. Clarke, George R.G. & Cull, Robert & Martinez Peria, Maria Soledad, 2006. "Foreign bank participation and access to credit across firms in developing countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 774-795, December.
    20. Muravyev, Alexander & Talavera, Oleksandr & Schäfer, Dorothea, 2009. "Entrepreneurs' gender and financial constraints: Evidence from international data," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 270-286, June.
    21. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1992. "Growth, distribution and politics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(2-3), pages 593-602, April.
    22. Chong, Terence Tai-Leung & Lu, Liping & Ongena, Steven, 2013. "Does banking competition alleviate or worsen credit constraints faced by small- and medium-sized enterprises? Evidence from China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 3412-3424.
    23. Gründler, Klaus & Krieger, Tommy, 2016. "Democracy and growth: Evidence from a machine learning indicator," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(S), pages 85-107.
    24. Friedrich Schneider & Andreas Buehn & Claudio Montenegro, 2010. "New Estimates for the Shadow Economies all over the World," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(4), pages 443-461.
    25. Madsen, Jakob B. & Raschky, Paul A. & Skali, Ahmed, 2015. "Does democracy drive income in the world, 1500–2000?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 175-195.
    26. David Audretsch & Alex Coad & Agustí Segarra, 2014. "Firm growth and innovation," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 43(4), pages 743-749, December.
    27. Koen Schoors & Laurent Weill, 2020. "Politics and banking in Russia: the rise of Putin," Post-Soviet Affairs, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(5-6), pages 451-474, November.
    28. Huang, Yongfu, 2010. "Political Institutions and Financial Development: An Empirical Study," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(12), pages 1667-1677, December.
    29. Kuntchev, Veselin & Ramalho, Rita & Rodriguez-Meza, Jorge & Yang, Judy S., 2013. "What have we learned from the enterprise surveys regarding access to credit by SMEs ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6670, The World Bank.
    30. Butler, Alexander W. & Cornaggia, Jess, 2011. "Does access to external finance improve productivity? Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 184-203, January.
    31. Jun Qian & Philip E. Strahan, 2007. "How Laws and Institutions Shape Financial Contracts: The Case of Bank Loans," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(6), pages 2803-2834, December.
    32. Petersen, Mitchell A & Rajan, Raghuram G, 1994. "The Benefits of Lending Relationships: Evidence from Small Business Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-37, March.
    33. Levine, Ross, 2005. "Finance and Growth: Theory and Evidence," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 865-934, Elsevier.
    34. Kee‐Hong Bae & Vidhan K. Goyal, 2009. "Creditor Rights, Enforcement, and Bank Loans," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 823-860, April.
    35. Stephen Haber & Enrico Perotti, 2008. "The Political Economy of Financial Systems," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-045/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    36. Anni Heikkilä & Panu Kalmi & Olli-Pekka Ruuskanen, 2016. "Social Capital and Access to Credit: Evidence from Uganda," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(9), pages 1273-1288, September.
    37. James R. Barth & Gerard Caprio & Ross Levine, 2013. "Bank regulation and supervision in 180 countries from 1999 to 2011," Journal of Financial Economic Policy, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 5(2), pages 111-219, May.
    38. Carl Henrik Knutsen, 2011. "Democracy, Dictatorship and Protection of Property Rights," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(1), pages 164-182.
    39. Männasoo, Kadri & Meriküll, Jaanika, 2020. "Credit constraints and R&D over the boom and bust: Firm-level evidence from Central and Eastern Europe," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 44(2).
    40. Dani Rodrik & Romain Wacziarg, 2005. "Do Democratic Transitions Produce Bad Economic Outcomes?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 50-55, May.
    41. Andersson, Fredrik NG, 2016. "A Blessing in Disguise? Banking Crises and Institutional Change," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 135-147.
    42. Clague, Christopher & Keefer, Philip & Knack, Stephen & Olson, Mancur, 1996. "Property and Contract Rights in Autocracies and Democracies," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 243-276, June.
    43. Elizabeth Asiedu & James A. Freeman & Akwasi Nti-Addae, 2012. "Access to Credit by Small Businesses: How Relevant Are Race, Ethnicity, and Gender?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 532-537, May.
    44. Meghana Ayyagari & Asli Demirguc-Kunt & Vojislav Maksimovic, 2014. "Who creates jobs in developing countries?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 75-99, June.
    45. Colagrossi, Marco & Rossignoli, Domenico & Maggioni, Mario A., 2020. "Does democracy cause growth? A meta-analysis (of 2000 regressions)," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    46. Beni Kouevi-Gath & Pierre-Guillaume Méon & Laurent Weill, 2021. "Do banking crises improve democracy?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 186(3), pages 413-446, March.
    47. Roberta Gatti & Inessa Love, 2008. "Does access to credit improve productivity? Evidence from Bulgaria1," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 16(3), pages 445-465, July.
    48. José Cheibub & Jennifer Gandhi & James Vreeland, 2010. "Democracy and dictatorship revisited," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 67-101, April.
    49. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli, 2006. "Small and medium-size enterprises: Access to finance as a growth constraint," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(11), pages 2931-2943, November.
    50. Gründler, Klaus & Krieger, Tommy, 2021. "Using Machine Learning for measuring democracy: A practitioners guide and a new updated dataset for 186 countries from 1919 to 2019," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    51. Fama, Eugene F & Jensen, Michael C, 1983. "Separation of Ownership and Control," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(2), pages 301-325, June.
    52. Christian Bjørnskov & Martin Rode, 2020. "Regime types and regime change: A new dataset on democracy, coups, and political institutions," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 531-551, April.
    53. James R. Barth & Gerard Caprio & Ross Levine, 2013. "Bank regulation and supervision in 180 countries from 1999 to 2011," Journal of Financial Economic Policy, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 5(2), pages 111-219, May.
    54. Van de Ven, Wynand P. M. M. & Van Praag, Bernard M. S., 1981. "The demand for deductibles in private health insurance : A probit model with sample selection," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 229-252, November.
    55. Drakos, Konstantinos & Giannakopoulos, Nicholas, 2011. "On the determinants of credit rationing: Firm-level evidence from transition countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(8), pages 1773-1790.
    56. Bussolo, Maurizio & de Nicola, Francesca & Panizza, Ugo & Varghese, Richard, 2022. "Politically connected firms and privileged access to credit: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    57. Gatti, Roberta & Honorati, Maddalena, 2007. "Informality among Formal Firms: Firm-level, Cross-country Evidence on Tax Compliance and Access to Credit," CEPR Discussion Papers 6597, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    58. repec:oup:ecpoli:v:26:y:2011:i:01:p:93-130 is not listed on IDEAS
    59. 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.
    60. Popov, Alexander & Udell, Gregory F., 2012. "Cross-border banking, credit access, and the financial crisis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 147-161.
    61. Fernandez, Raquel & Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Resistance to Reform: Status Quo Bias in the Presence of Individual-Specific Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1146-1155, December.
    62. Elizabeth Asiedu & Isaac Kalonda-Kanyama & Leonce Ndikumana & Akwasi Nti-Addae, 2013. "Access to Credit by Firms in Sub-Saharan Africa: How Relevant Is Gender?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 293-297, May.
    63. Dani Rodrik, 2000. "Participatory Politics, Social Cooperation, and Economic Stability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 140-144, May.
    64. Janvier Desire Nkurunziza, 2010. "The effect of credit on growth and convergence of firm size in Kenyan manufacturing," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 465-494.
    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. Florian Léon & Laurent Weill, 2024. "Elections hinder firms' access to credit," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(1), pages 73-107, January.

    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. Francis OSEI-TUTU & Laurent WEILL, 2020. "Does Access to Credit Come with Access to Voting? Democracy and Firm Financing Constraints," Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center 2020-04, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg.
    2. Osei-Tutu, Francis & Weill, Laurent, 2022. "Bank efficiency and access to credit: International evidence," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 46(3).
    3. repec:zbw:bofitp:2022_003 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Florian Léon & Laurent Weill, 2021. "Elections Hinder Firms' Access to Credit," Working Papers hal-03462407, HAL.
    5. Florian LEON & Laurent WEILL, 2021. "Elections Hinder Firms’ Access to Credit," Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center 2021-03, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg.
    6. Pierre-Guillaume Méon & Khalid Sekkat, 2016. "A time to throw stones, a time to reap: How long does it take for democratic transitions to improve institutional outcomes?," Working Papers CEB 16-016, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    7. Sima, Di & Huang, Fali, 2023. "Is democracy good for growth? — Development at political transition time matters," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    8. Krieger, Tommy, 2022. "Democracy and the quality of economic institutions: Theory and evidence," ZEW Discussion Papers 22-032, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. Florian Leon, 2015. "What do we know about the role of bank competition in Africa?," CERDI Working papers halshs-01164864, HAL.
    10. Gründler, Klaus & Krieger, Tommy, 2022. "Should we care (more) about data aggregation?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    11. Luca Farè & David B. Audretsch & Marcus Dejardin, 2023. "Does democracy foster entrepreneurship?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(4), pages 1461-1495, December.
    12. Tommy Krieger, 2022. "Democracy and the quality of economic institutions: theory and evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(3), pages 357-376, September.
    13. Daron Acemoglu & Suresh Naidu & Pascual Restrepo & James A. Robinson, 2019. "Democracy Does Cause Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 47-100.
    14. Steven Ongena & Alexander Popov, 2016. "Gender Bias and Credit Access," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(8), pages 1691-1724, December.
    15. Lacroix, Jean & Méon, Pierre-Guillaume & Sekkat, Khalid, 2021. "Democratic transitions can attract foreign direct investment: Effect, trajectories, and the role of political risk," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 340-357.
    16. Zuazu, Izaskun, 2019. "The growth effect of democracy and technology: An industry disaggregated approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 115-131.
    17. Nisticò, Roberto, 2022. "Political institutions and economic development over more than a century," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 199-215.
    18. Florian Léon & Laurent Weill, 2024. "Elections hinder firms' access to credit," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(1), pages 73-107, January.
    19. Léon, Florian & Zins, Alexandra, 2020. "Regional foreign banks and financial inclusion: Evidence from Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 102-116.
    20. Radeef Chundakkadan & Subash Sasidharan, 2022. "Gender gap and access to finance: A cross‐country analysis," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 180-207, February.
    21. Shusen Qi & Steven Ongena & Hua Cheng, 2022. "Working with women, do men get all the credit?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(4), pages 1427-1447, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Democracy; Access to credit; Financing constraints;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    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:eee:poleco:v:77:y:2023:i:c:s017626802200115x. 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/inca/505544 .

    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.