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The Impact of the Financial System's Structure on Firms' Financial Constraints

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Author Info

  • Christopher F. Baum

    () (Boston College, DIW Berlin)

  • Dorothea Schäfer

    () (DIW Berlin)

  • Oleksandr Talavera

    (University of East Anglia)

Abstract

We estimate firms' cash flow sensitivity of cash to empirically test how the financial system's structure and activity level influence their financial constraints. For this purpose we merge Almeida et al. (2004), a path-breaking new design for evaluating a firm's financial constraints, with Levine (2002), who paved the way for comparative analysis of financial systems around the world. We conjecture that a country's financial system, both in terms of its structure and its level of development, influences the cash flow sensitivity of cash of constrained firms but leaves unconstrained firms unaffected. We test our hypothesis with a large international sample of 80,000 firm-years from 1989 to 2006. Our findings reveal that both the structure of the financial system and its level of development matter. Bank-based financial systems provide the constrained firms with easier access to external financing.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Boston College Department of Economics in its series Boston College Working Papers in Economics with number 690.

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Date of creation: 08 Oct 2008
Date of revision: 03 Sep 2010
Publication status: published, Journal of International Money and Finance, 2011, 30, 678-691
Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:690

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Keywords: financial constraints; financial structure; financial development; cash flow sensitivity of cash;

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  1. Steven M. Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 2000. "Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities Are Useful: A Comment On Kaplan And Zingales," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 115(2), pages 695-705, May.
  2. Bronwyn H. Hall & Jacques Mairesse & Benoit Mulkay, 1998. "Firm-level investment in France an the United States: an exploration of what we have learned in twenty years," IFS Working Papers W98/10, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
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  7. Ross Levine, 2002. "Bank-Based or Market-Based Financial Systems: Which is Better?," NBER Working Papers 9138, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Christopher F Baum & Mustafa Caglayan & Oleksandr Talavera, 2009. "The Effects of Future Capital Investment and R&D Expenditures on Firms' Liquidity," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 712, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 23 Jul 2012.
  2. Martinsson, Gustav & Lööf, Hans, 2009. "Internal Finance and Patents - evidence from firm-level data," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 194, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
  3. Hottenrott, Hanna & Peters, Bettina, 2011. "Innovative capability and financing constraints for innovation: More money, more innovation?," ZEW Discussion Papers 09-081 [rev.], ZEW - Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung / Center for European Economic Research.
  4. Filipe Silva & Carlos Carreira, 2012. "Measuring Firms' Financial Constraints: A Rough Guide," Notas Económicas, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade de Coimbra, issue 36, pages 23-46, December.

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