Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) represent a large percentage of the corporate tissue of developed countries, but they do not have adequate attention. In fact, various researchers have focused their studies on larger and well-known companies. This paper aims to investigate the impact of...

In this paper, we explore the link between SME investment, firm economic characteristics, and the presence of financing constraints during the post-2008 crisis recovery period in Ireland. We use novel survey data between 2016 and 2018, which disaggregates investment by asset type and allows a...

In this paper, we use a novel survey module to consider investment in health-related expenditures by SMEs following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland. Using a unique dataset designed to capture expenditure on public health measures, we explore the heterogeneity in expenditure across...

Economic agents pursue government funds using political connections, but it is sometimes unclear which types of connections and whose connections matter, and which agents have opportunities to benefit. We address these issues for the over one-half-trillion-dollar Paycheck Protection Program...

Conventional wisdom holds that small banks have comparative advantages vis-à-vis large banks in serving small firms, while recent literature suggests this may not be the case. Using a panel of recent US start-ups, we investigate how small bank presence affects these firms in normal times...

While differences in capital structure between large and small firms have been extensively researched, relatively less empirical evidence is available explaining cross country differences in the capital structure of SMEs over the life cycle. This is an important gap as many of the theoretical...

In this paper, we use firm-level survey data to explore the determinants of SME investment activity and the extent to which observed investment is in line with that suggested by economic fundamentals. In contrast to previous literature which has focused on whether investment gaps exist at a more...