Suchergebnisse

AbstractBased on a large panel of Italian SMEs, this paper focuses on the relationship between firms' default probability and the amount of bank debt they obtain, evaluating whether and to what extent this link is affected by the degree of competition characterizing the local credit market where firms operate. Using a dynamic panel estimator, we find that higher bank competition implies a stronger influence of firms' riskiness on bank financing to SMEs. We provide two plausible interpretations of this finding: one resorting to more accurate screening by more competitive banks; the other alleging lower market power of incumbent banks, which may restrict their willingness to finance riskier firms.

In this paper, we seek to empirically assess which determinants of the capability and incentives of banks to screen and monitor firms are significant in explaining credit rationing to Italian SMEs. After testing for the presence of non‐random selection bias and the potential endogeneity of some determinants of interest, the probit model results we obtain suggest that the average banking size and the multiple banking relationship phenomenon are statistically significant factors affecting credit rationing, presumably through their impact on the aforementioned banks' capability and incentives. Other potential determinants of banks' incentives to monitor and screen, such as local banking competition and firm' capacity to collateralize, are never significant. However, when we split the sample according to the level of competition in credit markets, we find that the estimated marginal effects of all significant determinants of interest are larger in absolute value than those obtained when using the whole sample.

AbstractThis work empirically investigates Italian cooperative banks (BCCs) as a driver of new business creation in the Italian provinces over the period 2003–12. The results show that the presence of BCCs positively and significantly affects firms' entry rates. We also find that the impact of BCCs diffusion on birth rate tends to be stronger for high tech industries during the pre‐crisis years, whilst it appears larger for low‐tech sectors when considering the post‐crisis period. This evidence suggests that BCCs might play a relevant role in financing innovative and risky firms—though, when banks' risk‐aversion increases, BCCs tend, unsurprisingly, to downsize the financing of riskier projects.