Credit scarcity in developing countries: An empirical investigation using Brazilian firm-level data

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether Brazilian manufacturing firms are credit constrained. We exploit a rich database that contains more than three thousand firms with characteristics that may affect their degree of credit constraint: size, being listed in the Brazilian stock market and level of exports-sales ratio. Our results show that all dimensions considered here may affect the sensitiveness of investment to cash flow. Large firms, stock market listed firms as well as firms with better export capacity are associated with inexistence or less credit restriction. Specifically, considering firms’ size, our results corroborate the economic theory prediction and empirical international literature. Furthermore, the influence of being listed in the stock market and export capacity is beyond any possible correlation with size. Even small and middle firms are not credit constrained when listed in the stock market or when the exports-sales ratio is higher.