IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jjrfmx/v18y2024i1p14-d1557416.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Accessibility to Bank Branches on Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprise Capital Structure: Evidence from Swedish Panel Data

Author

Listed:
  • Cynthia Sin Tian Ho

    (Business Administration, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden)

  • Björn Berggren

    (Business Administration, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden)

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the effects of accessibility to bank branches on the capital structure of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by analysing the change in three different leverage measures (total, short-term and long-term leverage). The analysis was conducted using random effects models on two data samples. The full sample consisted of 19,064 SMEs while the other sample used to estimate the long-term leverage consisted of 8707 SMEs over two years, 2007 and 2013. The results show that the distance to the nearest bank branch has a negative relationship with total leverage and short-term leverage but a small positive relationship with long-term leverage. An interesting result from the robustness test shows that the distance to the nearest bank negatively affects the long-term leverage of SMEs in rural areas. SME owners and policymakers may benefit from this research amidst the changing banking landscape; policymakers can help increase access to other types of funding for SMEs in bank deserts by increasing the volume of governmental loans. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the distance to the nearest bank branch office has not been examined in the earlier literature as a determinant of the leverage of SMEs.

Suggested Citation

  • Cynthia Sin Tian Ho & Björn Berggren, 2024. "The Effect of Accessibility to Bank Branches on Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprise Capital Structure: Evidence from Swedish Panel Data," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 18(1), pages 1-18, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jjrfmx:v:18:y:2024:i:1:p:14-:d:1557416
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/18/1/14/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/18/1/14/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allen N. Berger & Gregory F. Udell, 2002. "Small Business Credit Availability and Relationship Lending: The Importance of Bank Organisational Structure," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(477), pages 32-53, February.
    2. Paolo Agnese & Manuel Rizzo & Gianfranco A. Vento, 2018. "SMEs finance and bankruptcies: The role of credit guarantee schemes in the UK," Journal of Applied Finance & Banking, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 8(3), pages 1-1.
    3. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    4. Myers, Stewart C., 1984. "Capital structure puzzle," Working papers 1548-84., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    5. Birley, Sue, 1985. "The role of networks in the entrepreneurial process," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 107-117.
    6. Edward I. Altman & Gabriele Sabato, 2013. "MODELING CREDIT RISK FOR SMEs: EVIDENCE FROM THE US MARKET," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Oliviero Roggi & Edward I Altman (ed.), Managing and Measuring Risk Emerging Global Standards and Regulations After the Financial Crisis, chapter 9, pages 251-279, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Daskalakis, Nikolaos & Balios, Dimitrios & Dalla, Violetta, 2017. "The behaviour of SMEs' capital structure determinants in different macroeconomic states," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 248-260.
    8. repec:eme:mfppss:v:37:y:2011:i:2:p:117-133 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Agarwal, Sumit & Ben-David, Itzhak, 2018. "Loan prospecting and the loss of soft information," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(3), pages 608-628.
    10. DeAngelo, Harry & DeAngelo, Linda, 2006. "The irrelevance of the MM dividend irrelevance theorem," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 293-315, February.
    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. Fernández de Guevara, Juan & Maudos, Joaquín & Salvador, Carlos, 2021. "Effects of the degree of financial constraint and excessive indebtedness on firms’ investment decisions," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    2. Nikolaos Daskalakis & Eleni Tsota, 2023. "Reintroducing Industry Effects in Capital Structure Determination of SMEs," Business & Entrepreneurship Journal, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 12(2), pages 1-4.
    3. Carolyn W. Chang & Kian Guan Lim & Zhi Min Zhang, 2024. "Leverage Strategies of Real Estate Investment Trusts and Real Estate Operating Companies," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 27(1), pages 81-115.
    4. Georgios A. Savvakis & Dimitris Kenourgios & Theofanis Papageorgiou, 2021. "To EMU or not to EMU: Can TFP “provoke” the capital structure puzzle of SMEs?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(2), pages 2595-2611, April.
    5. Burietz, A. & Ureche-Rangau, L., 2020. "Better the devil you know: Home and sectoral biases in bank lending," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 69-85.
    6. Hussein Abedi Shamsabadi & Byung-Seong Min & Richard Chung, 2016. "Corporate governance and dividend strategy: lessons from Australia," International Journal of Managerial Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 12(5), pages 583-610, October.
    7. Isabelle Roland, 2018. "Unlocking SME productivity: review of recent evidence and implications for the UK’s industrial strategy," CEP Industrial Strategy 05, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    8. Antonio D’Amato, 2020. "Capital structure, debt maturity, and financial crisis: empirical evidence from SMEs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 919-941, December.
    9. Marc Cowling & Weixi Liu & Raffaella Calabrese, 2022. "Has previous loan rejection scarred firms from applying for loans during Covid-19?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(4), pages 1327-1350, December.
    10. Gregory F Udell, 2015. "SME Access to Intermediated Credit: What Do We Know and What Don't We Know?," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Angus Moore & John Simon (ed.),Small Business Conditions and Finance, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    11. Maria Angelina Valadares Silva & António Melo Cerqueira & Elísio Brandão, 2017. "The Determinants of Capital Structure: Evidence from Non-financial Listed German Companies," FEP Working Papers 588, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    12. Slavec, Alenka & Prodan, Igor, 2012. "The influence of entrepreneur’s characteristics on small manufacturing firm debt financing," Journal of East European Management Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 17(1), pages 104-130.
    13. Tekalign Negash Kebede, 2024. "Firm-specific and country-level determinants of commercial banks capital structures: evidence from Ethiopia," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 1-25, December.
    14. Govori, Fadil, 2014. "The development of capital market and its impact on providing alternative sources of business financing: Empirical analysis," MPRA Paper 58189, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Faff, Robert & Kwok, Wing Chun & Podolski, Edward J. & Wong, George, 2016. "Do corporate policies follow a life-cycle?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 95-107.
    16. Iván Arribas & Emili Tortosa-Ausina & TingTing Zhu, 2021. "Optimal capital structure, model uncertainty, and European SMEs," Working Papers 2021/11, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    17. Özgür Arslan-Ayaydin & Chris Florackis & Aydin Ozkan, 2014. "Financial flexibility, corporate investment and performance: evidence from financial crises," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 211-250, February.
    18. John Elim, 2019. "Model of Firm Value Indonesian Stock Exchange Case," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 9(3), pages 154-162.
    19. Wang, David Han-Min, 2010. "Corporate investment, financing, and dividend policies in the high-tech industry," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(5), pages 486-489, May.
    20. James Agyei & Shaorong Sun & Eugene Abrokwah, 2020. "Trade-Off Theory Versus Pecking Order Theory: Ghanaian Evidence," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(3), pages 21582440209, July.

    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:gam:jjrfmx:v:18:y:2024:i:1:p:14-:d:1557416. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.