SME Financing in Europe: Cross-Country Determinants of Debt Maturity

We examine the influence of cross country differences on debt maturity for small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) using a sample of 3366 SMEs from 19 European countries. We analyze a country's legal environment, institutional environment, banking structure and economic situation while controlling for firm specific characteristic. We find that SMEs in countries with high property rights that protect their creditors or enforce existing laws are more likely to obtain long-term debt. We also show evidence that banks seem to rely more on the legal, economic, and institutional determinants when determining the length of a loan agreement for micro firms than when granting loans to medium size firms.