IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lui/casmef/1212.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

SME Financing and the Choice of Lending Technology in Italy: Complementarity or Substitutability?

Author

Listed:
  • Francesca Bartoli

    (UniCredit Group)

  • Giovanni Ferri

    (University of Bari)

  • Pierluigi Murro

    (LUISS Guido Carli University, Department of Economics and Finance and CASMEF)

  • Zeno Rotondi

    (UniCredit Group)

Abstract

This paper investigates SME financing in Italy. The literature distinguishes between two main different lending technologies (LTs) for SMEs: transactional and relationship LTs. We find that banks lend to SMEs by using both LTs together, independently of the size and proximity of borrowers. Moreover, we show that when soft information is taken into account in transactional (relationship) lending it increases (decreases) the probability of firms being credit rationed. These results support the view that LTs can be complementary, but reject the hypothesis that substitutability among LTs is somehow possible for outsiders by means of hardening of soft information.

Suggested Citation

  • Francesca Bartoli & Giovanni Ferri & Pierluigi Murro & Zeno Rotondi, 2012. "SME Financing and the Choice of Lending Technology in Italy: Complementarity or Substitutability?," Working Papers CASMEF 1212, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, LUISS Guido Carli.
  • Handle: RePEc:lui:casmef:1212
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.static.luiss.it/RePEc/pdf/casmef/1212.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hirofumi Uchida & Gregory F. Udell & Nobuyoshi Yamori, 2006. "SME financing and the choice of lending technology," Discussion papers 06025, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    2. Berger, Allen N. & Klapper, Leora F. & Udell, Gregory F., 2001. "The ability of banks to lend to informationally opaque small businesses," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(12), pages 2127-2167, December.
    3. benvenuti, m. & casolaro, l. & del prete, s. & mistrulli, p. e., 2010. "Loan Officer Authority and Small Business Lending.Evidence from a survey," MPRA Paper 26475, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. de la Torre, Augusto & Martínez Pería, María Soledad & Schmukler, Sergio L., 2010. "Bank involvement with SMEs: Beyond relationship lending," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(9), pages 2280-2293, September.
    5. Columba, Francesco & Gambacorta, Leonardo & Mistrulli, Paolo Emilio, 2010. "Mutual guarantee institutions and small business finance," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 45-54, April.
    6. 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.
    7. Berger, Allen N & Frame, W Scott & Miller, Nathan H, 2005. "Credit Scoring and the Availability, Price, and Risk of Small Business Credit," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(2), pages 191-222, April.
    8. Degryse, Hans & Van Cayseele, Patrick, 2000. "Relationship Lending within a Bank-Based System: Evidence from European Small Business Data," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 90-109, January.
    9. Berger, Allen N. & Miller, Nathan H. & Petersen, Mitchell A. & Rajan, Raghuram G. & Stein, Jeremy C., 2005. "Does function follow organizational form? Evidence from the lending practices of large and small banks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 237-269, May.
    10. Berger, Allen N. & Udell, Gregory F., 2006. "A more complete conceptual framework for SME finance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(11), pages 2945-2966, November.
    11. Bartoli, Francesca & Ferri, Giovanni & Murro, Pierluigi & Rotondi, Zeno, 2013. "Bank–firm relations and the role of Mutual Guarantee Institutions at the peak of the crisis," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 90-104.
    12. Pavitt, Keith, 1984. "Sectoral patterns of technical change: Towards a taxonomy and a theory," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 13(6), pages 343-373, December.
    13. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2004. "The Role of Social Capital in Financial Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 526-556, June.
    14. Sauro Mocetti & Marcello Pagnini & Enrico Sette, 2017. "Information Technology and Banking Organization," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 51(3), pages 313-338, June.
    15. Angelini, P. & Di Salvo, R. & Ferri, G., 1998. "Availability and cost of credit for small businesses: Customer relationships and credit cooperatives," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(6-8), pages 925-954, August.
    16. Rajan, Raghuram G, 1992. "Insiders and Outsiders: The Choice between Informed and Arm's-Length Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1367-1400, September.
    17. Berger, Allen N. & Black, Lamont K., 2011. "Bank size, lending technologies, and small business finance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 724-735, March.
    18. Frame, W Scott & Srinivasan, Aruna & Woosley, Lynn, 2001. "The Effect of Credit Scoring on Small-Business Lending," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(3), pages 813-825, August.
    19. Jose M. Liberti & Atif R. Mian, 2009. "Estimating the Effect of Hierarchies on Information Use," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(10), pages 4057-4090, October.
    20. Kano, Masaji & Uchida, Hirofumi & Udell, Gregory F. & Watanabe, Wako, 2011. "Information verifiability, bank organization, bank competition and bank-borrower relationships," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 935-954, April.
    21. Uchida, Hirofumi & Udell, Gregory F. & Yamori, Nobuyoshi, 2012. "Loan officers and relationship lending to SMEs," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 97-122.
    22. Jeremy C. Stein, 2002. "Information Production and Capital Allocation: Decentralized versus Hierarchical Firms," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 1891-1921, October.
    23. Cole, Rebel A., 1998. "The importance of relationships to the availability of credit," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(6-8), pages 959-977, August.
    24. Jonathan Scott, 2004. "Small Business and the Value of Community Financial Institutions," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 207-230, April.
    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. Ferri, Giovanni & Murro, Pierluigi, 2015. "Do firm–bank ‘odd couples’ exacerbate credit rationing?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 231-251.
    2. Berger, Allen N. & Goulding, William & Rice, Tara, 2014. "Do small businesses still prefer community banks?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 264-278.
    3. Uchida, Hirofumi & Udell, Gregory F. & Yamori, Nobuyoshi, 2012. "Loan officers and relationship lending to SMEs," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 97-122.
    4. Marcello Pagnini & Silvia Del Prete & Paola Rossi & Valerio Vacca, 2013. "Lending Organization and Credit Supply During the Crisis," ERSA conference papers ersa13p673, European Regional Science Association.
    5. Djedidi-Kooli, Salima, 2009. "L’accès au financement des PME en France : quel rôle joué par la structure du système bancaire ?," Economics Thesis from University Paris Dauphine, Paris Dauphine University, number 123456789/8354 edited by Etner, François.
    6. Berger, Allen N. & Black, Lamont K., 2011. "Bank size, lending technologies, and small business finance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 724-735, March.
    7. Diana Bonfim & Qinglei Dai, 2017. "Bank Size and Lending Specialisation," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 46(2), pages 329-380, July.
    8. Allen N. Berger & William Goulding & Tara N. Rice, 2013. "Do Small Businesses Still Prefer Community Banks?," International Finance Discussion Papers 1096, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    9. Kano, Masaji & Uchida, Hirofumi & Udell, Gregory F. & Watanabe, Wako, 2011. "Information verifiability, bank organization, bank competition and bank-borrower relationships," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 935-954, April.
    10. de la Torre, Augusto & Martínez Pería, María Soledad & Schmukler, Sergio L., 2010. "Bank involvement with SMEs: Beyond relationship lending," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(9), pages 2280-2293, September.
    11. Tlili, Rim, 2012. "Comment justifier la multibancarité au sein des PME ?," Economics Thesis from University Paris Dauphine, Paris Dauphine University, number 123456789/10919 edited by Etner, François.
    12. Presbitero, Andrea F. & Zazzaro, Alberto, 2011. "Competition and relationship lending: Friends or foes?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 387-413, July.
    13. Udell, Gregory F., 2008. "What's in a relationship The case of commercial lending," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 93-103.
    14. Stefano Filomeni & Michele Modina & Elena Tabacco, 2023. "Trade credit and firm investments: empirical evidence from Italian cooperative banks," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 60(3), pages 1099-1141, April.
    15. Ferri, Giovanni & Murro, Pierluigi & Peruzzi, Valentina & Rotondi, Zeno, 2019. "Bank lending technologies and credit availability in Europe: What can we learn from the crisis?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 128-148.
    16. Ogura, Yoshiaki, 2012. "Lending competition and credit availability for new firms: Empirical study with the price cost margin in regional loan markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1822-1838.
    17. Bertrand, Jérémie & Murro, Pierluigi, 2022. "Firm–bank “odd couples” and trade credit: Evidence from Italian small- and medium-sized enterprises," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    18. Loukil Sahar & Jarboui Anis, 2016. "Loan officers and soft information production," Cogent Business & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 1199521-119, December.
    19. Hirsch, Bernhard & Nitzl, Christian & Schoen, Matthias, 2018. "Interorganizational trust and agency costs in credit relationships between savings banks and SMEs," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 37-50.
    20. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5897 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Durguner, Sena, 2017. "Do borrower-lender relationships still matter for small business loans?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 98-118.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Lending technologies; bank-firm relationship; soft information; hard information; small business finance.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance

    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:lui:casmef:1212. 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: Pierluigi Murro (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deluiit.html .

    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.