This paper studies the decision of firms to extend trade credit to customers and its relation with their financing decisions. The authors use a novel firm-level database of Chinese SMEs with unique information on market power in both output and input markets and on the amount, terms, and payment...

The Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) database, launched by the World Bank in 2011, provides comparable indicators showing how people around the world save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. The 2014 edition of the database reveals that 62 percent of adults worldwide have an...

The authors examine the effects of taxation on financing policy using the corporate tax reform in 2001 in Croatia as a natural experiment. Since the extant literature on tax effects on capital structure studies listed firms in developed countries, it is worth investigating whether the same...

The World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Survey measures entrepreneurial activity around the world. The database includes cross-country, time-series data on the number of total and newly registered businesses for 84 countries. This paper finds significant relationships between entrepreneurial...

The ability of consumers to make informed financial decisions improves their chances of having sound personal finance. This paper uses a panel dataset from Russia, where consumer loans grew at an astounding rate -- from about US$10 billion in 2003 to over US$170 billion in 2008 -- to examine the...

This paper evaluates how microfinance performed in providing business financing in 27 Sub-Saharan African countries. It uses data from the 2009 and 2010 Gallup World Poll, a nationally-representative survey of at least 1,000 individuals per country, conducted in up to 157 countries per year. The...

This paper summarizes financial inclusion across Africa. First, it provides a brief overview of the African financial sector landscape. Second, it uses the Global Financial Inclusion Indicators (Global Findex) database to characterize adults in Africa that use formal and informal financial...

This paper provides new evidence on the unique role of trade credit and contracting terms as a way for both sellers and buyers to mange business risk. The authors use a novel and unique dataset on almost 30,000 supplier contracts for 56 large buyers and more than 24,000 suppliers in Europe and...

The authors employ a novel dataset on almost 30,000 trade credit contracts to describe the broad characteristics of the parties that contract together; the key contractual terms, such as the discount for early payment; and the days by when payment is due. Whereas prior work has typically used...

The 2008 financial crisis was followed by a global economic downturn, credit crunch, and reduction in cross-border lending, trade finance, remittances, and foreign direct investment, which adversely affected businesses around the world. The consequent increase in the number of firm insolvencies...