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Determinants of firms’ efficiency: do innovations and finance constraints matter? The case of European SMEs

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  • Ferrando, Annalisa
  • Rossi, Stefania P. S.
  • Bonanno, Graziella

Abstract

This paper aims at investigating the relationship between firms’ profit efficiency, access to finance and innovation activities. We enrich our understanding on firms’ performance by adopting the stochastic frontier approach (SFA), which allows us to estimate profit functions and to obtain efficiency scores for a large sample of European firms. We pioneer the use of a novel dataset that merges survey-based data derived from the ECB Survey on access to finance for enterprises (SAFE) with balance sheet information. Our evidence documents that credit constrained firms display an incentive to improve their efficiency in order to increase profitability. Among firms that have embarked in product innovation, those in the industry and high-tech sectors see their effort translated in higher profit efficiency. From a policy perspective, our results could help to better understand the link between innovation, financial constraints and efficiency, which goes beyond the idea that easier access to finance is the panacea to get higher profit efficiency. JEL Classification: D22, D24, L23, O31, C33

Suggested Citation

  • Ferrando, Annalisa & Rossi, Stefania P. S. & Bonanno, Graziella, 2020. "Determinants of firms’ efficiency: do innovations and finance constraints matter? The case of European SMEs," Working Paper Series 2419, European Central Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20202419
    Note: 235236
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    2. Norbert Ernst & Nico Pintar & Richard Sellner, 2023. "Resource Misallocation and TFP Gap Development in Austria (Richard Sellner, Nico Pintar, Norbert Ernst)," Working Papers 246, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    access to finance; innovation; stochastic frontier approach; survey data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • L23 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Organization of Production
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

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