This paper uses a large panel of survey data on German firms in the manufacturing sector to analyse the effects of financing constraints for investors in general and for innovative firms in particular. Survey data with information on financing conditions are potentially a valuable tool that...

CEE countries such as Poland started to experience a very high rate of financial development within a few years after emerging from socialism. A review of the literature suggests that this asymmetric development should have been most beneficial for those industry sectors most dependent on...

Since the early 1990s an unprecedented process of consolidation has taken place in the banking sector in most industrialised countries raising concern of policymakers that it may reduce access to credit for the small business sector. While most of the existing empirical studies have focused on...

In an overlapping generations economy, lenders fund risky investment projects of firms by drawing up loan contracts in the presence of an informational asymmetry. An optimal contract entails the issue of only debt, only equity, or a mix of the two. The equilibrium choice of contract depends on...

Den kleinen und mittelständischen Unternehmen kommt in der deutschen Wirtschaft eine herausragende Bedeutung zu. Sie machen 99,7 % aller deutschen Unternehmen aus und beschäftigen über 70 % aller Arbeitnehmer, tragen mit 46,7 % zur Bruttowertschöpfung aller Unternehmen bei, erwirtschaften...

In most Asian countries including Vietnam, inadequate access of small farmers and microentepreneurs including women and the poor to effective financial services presents a major challenge. Such services must include facilities to deposit microsavings, access to microcredit for production,...

The Philippines, a country of great promise in the 1950s, has greatly lagged behind many other Asian countries. Between 1991 and 1994 urban poverty declined from 26% to 29%; but rural poverty virtually stagnated at a much higher rate: 55% and 54%, respectively. Poverty lending programs were...