We examine PME trade credit use across industry sectors in France between 2001 and 2010. Our main results provide evidence that suppliers efficiently deal with informational problems. First, we notice that trade credit is more important in firms total funding in sectors where standard deviations...

(VF)Cette contribution traite du crédit interentreprises et des délais de paiement particulièrement longs pratiqués par les entreprises françaises.Sur la base d’un échantillon de firmes industrielles et commerciales de la région Lorraine, observées de 1998 à 2006, nous produisons des...

Using a supplier–client matched sample, we study the effect of the 2007–2008 financial crisis on between-firm liquidity provision. Consistent with a causal effect of a negative shock to bank credit, we find that firms with high precrisis liquidity levels increased the trade credit extended...

Using a sample of firms matched with their suppliers, we study the use of trade credit as firms approach a default event. We show that, in the extensive margin, around one third of suppliers exit the relationship well ahead of default, but the rest continue the relationship. Relationships are...

We quantify the importance of trade credit chains for the propagation of corporate bankruptcies. Our results show that trade creditors (suppliers) that issue more trade credit are more exposed to trade debtor (customer) failures, both in terms of the likelihood of experiencing a debtor failure...

Employing data from a unique firm survey, this article examines small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) financing in Japan during the global financial crisis. The major findings of the article are two-fold. First, in terms of credit availability, loans extended by main banks were the “first...

The industrial organization of developing countries is characterized by: (i) pervasive use of subcontracting arrangements among small firms, (ii) "missing middle" in the firm size distribution, and (iii) financially constrained firms.  This paper studies an incomplete contract model in which...

This paper first examines various definitions of Kornai's soft budget constraint (SBC) and the difficulties involved in interpreting data on losses, subsidies and financing, and then considers selective evidence from transition economies. Stocks of overdue trade credit are no larger than in...

In this paper we survey the common explanations of barter in transition economies and expose them to detailed survey data on 165 barter deals in Ukraine in 1997. The evidence does not support the notion that soft budget constraints, lack of restructuring, or that the virtual economy are the...

The virtual economy argument for Russia suggests that barter -a payment in goods rather than cash - allows the parties to pretend that the manufacturing sector is producing value added by enabling this sector to sell its output at a higher price than its market value. We confront this prediction...