In this paper we examine the relationship between ownership differences and small firms’ financial policies using a survey of U.S. companies. The study finds that financial policies differ according to the type of ownership (private versus public) and by the ownership differences...

Despite financial economists' long-standing interest in the role of lender-borrower relationships in increasing the availability of funds to small businesses, many questions remain unanswered. Numerous empirical studies investigate the effect of relationships on the availability and terms of...

The existing finance literature is inadequate with respect to its coverage of the debt structure of small and medi-um sized enterprises (SMEs). In addition, the role of trust in accessing finance for such enterprises is under-investigated. This paper presents a mathematical model for optimizing...

Although the word finance is in the term microfinance, and the core elements of microfinance are those of the finance discipline, microfinance has yet to break into the mainstream or entrepreneurial finance literature. The purpose of this article is to introduce the finance academic community to...

Access to capital is an on-going challenge for small firms. Capital is required to address a broad range of needs: to cover start-up costs, to provide working capital, to secure facilities or equipment, and to hire employees. Most small firms are at a relative disadvantage, because they are too...

The choice of financing source is particularly difficult for a small firm due to the high uncertainty about future liquidity requirements. We show that the techniques of continuous time arbitrage and stochastic control theory may be used not only to value such firms but also to determine the...

In developed countries in everyday business, payment delays often present a problem. Payment delays have already been a matter of discussion in Slovenia for several years. Irrespective of some positive movements in the past years, the state of payment discipline in Slovenia is not at a...

This work examines the leverage ratios of firms covered by the 1998 SSBF Survey. We find that small firms in general are significantly more levered than their larger counterparts in an industry-matched Compustat sample, but the difference is at least partially explained by differences in...

The beneficial economic effects of entrepreneurial activity can only be realised if such activity is relatively unconstrained in both product and factor markets, finance has been widely identified as a potential constraint on entrepreneurial activity due to either debt or equity gaps. However,...

Using the 1998 Survey of Small Business Finances and banking data to produce a bank-firm match, the author tests for evidence of standardized versus relationship lending methods in both total bank credit as well as credit emanating from the firm’s most important source of financial services,...