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When do enterprises prefer informal credit ?

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  • Safavian, Mehnaz
  • Wimpey, Joshua
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    Abstract

    This paper tests the hypothesis that enterprises may forgo formal finance in lieu of informal credit by choice. They do so to avoid the additional regulatory scrutiny and harassment that engaging with the formal financial sector invites. We test this hypothesis using enterprise-level data on 3,564 enterprises in 29 countries. In this sample, enterprises finance approximately 57 percent of their working capital requirements with external finance. This external finance comes from formal sources, such as commercial banks (53 percent) and informal sources (42 percent), such as trade creditors, or family and friends. In our sample, 14 percent of enterprises rely exclusively on informal finance. We find that the likelihood of enterprises preferring to only use informal finance is inversely related to the quality of the regulatory environment, particularly the quality of tax administration and overall governance. For example, we find that when an enterprise has been asked for bribes by tax inspectors, it is 17 percent more likely to prefer informal finance.

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    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by The World Bank in its series Policy Research Working Paper Series with number 4435.

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    Date of creation: 12 Nov 2007
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    Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4435

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    Related research

    Keywords: Access to Finance; Banks&Banking Reform; Debt Markets; Small and Medium Size Enterprises;

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    References

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    1. John McMillan & Christopher Woodruff, 1998. "Interfirm Relationships and Informal Credit in Vietnam," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 132, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    2. Bianco, Magda & Jappelli, Tullio & Pagano, Marco, 2002. "Courts and Banks: Effects of Judicial Enforcement on Credit Markets," CEPR Discussion Papers 3347, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Djankov, Simeon & La Porta, Rafael & López-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 2001. "The Regulation of Entry," CEPR Discussion Papers 2953, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Rafael Porta & Florencio de & Guillermo Zamarripa, 2002. "Related Lending," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm268, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Apr 2006.
    5. Simon Johnson & John McMillan & Christopher Woodruff, 2002. "Property Rights and Finance," NBER Working Papers 8852, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Djankov, Simeon & McLiesh, Caralee & Shleifer, Andrei, 2007. "Private credit in 129 countries," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 299-329, May.
    7. Petersen, Mitchell A & Rajan, Raghuram G, 1997. "Trade Credit: Theories and Evidence," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(3), pages 661-91.
    8. Sarmistha Pal, 2002. "Household sectoral choice and effective demand for rural credit in India," Applied Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 34(14), pages 1743-1755.
    9. Rafael LaPorta & Florencio Lopez de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "Legal Determinants of External Finance," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1788, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    10. Bell, Clive, 1988. "Credit markets and interlinked transactions," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Hollis Chenery† & T.N. Srinivasan (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 16, pages 763-830 Elsevier.
    11. 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.
    12. Hoff, Karla & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1990. "Imperfect Information and Rural Credit Markets--Puzzles and Policy Perspectives," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 4(3), pages 235-50, September.
    13. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Levine, Ross, 2006. "Bank supervision and corruption in lending," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 2131-2163, November.
    14. Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silane & Andrei Shleifer & Juan Botero, 2003. "The Regulation of Labor," NBER Working Papers 9756, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Joshua Angrist & Alan Krueger, 2001. "Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments," Working Papers 834, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    16. Fisman, Raymond & Svensson, Jakob, 2000. "Are corruption and taxation really harmful to growth? - firm-level evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2485, The World Bank.
    17. Bell, Clive & Srinivasan, T N & Udry, Christopher, 1997. "Rationing, Spillover, and Interlinking in Credit Markets: The Case of Rural Punjab," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 557-85, October.
    18. repec:fth:prinin:455 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Inessa Love & Nataliya Mylenko, 2003. "Credit reporting and financing constraints," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3142, The World Bank.
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    Cited by:
    1. Junko Koeda & Era Dabla-Norris, 2008. "Informality and Bank Credit: Evidence from Firm-Level Data," IMF Working Papers 08/94, International Monetary Fund.

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