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Investment, Credit Rationing, And The Soft Budget Constraint: Evidence From Czech Panel Data

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  • Lubomír Lízal
  • Jan Svejnar

Abstract

Strategic restructuring of firms through investment is key to a transition from plan to market. Using data on industrial firms in the Czech Republic during 1992-1998, we find that foreign-owned companies invest the most and cooperatives the least, that private firms do not invest more than state-owned ones, and that cooperatives and small firms are credit rationed. Given the large volume of nonperforming bank loans to firms and the high rate of investment of large state-owned and private firms, our findings also suggest that these firms operate under a soft budget constraint. Estimates of a dynamic model, together with the support for the neoclassical model, suggest that firms started to behave consistently with profit maximization. © 2002 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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  • Lubomír Lízal & Jan Svejnar, 2002. "Investment, Credit Rationing, And The Soft Budget Constraint: Evidence From Czech Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 353-370, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:84:y:2002:i:2:p:353-370
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • P21 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Planning, Coordination, and Reform
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D92 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice, Investment, Capacity, and Financing

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