"This paper examines the role of private support institutions in determining small and medium enterprise (SME) growth and performance in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It finds that SMEs in SSA get around market failures and lack of formal institutions by creating private governance systems in the...

"The authors propose a more complete conceptual framework for analysis of credit availability for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In this framework, lending technologies are the key conduit through which government policies and national financial structures affect credit availability. They...

Large and foreign-owned institutions may have difficulty extending relationship loans to informationally opaque small firms. Bank distress does not appear to affect small business lending, although even small firms may react to bank distress by borrowing from multiple banks