This paper investigates SME financing in Italy. The literature distinguishes between two main different lending technologies (LTs) for SMEs: transactional and relationship LTs. We find that banks lend to SMEs by using both LTs together, independently of the size and proximity of borrowers....

The ability of a country and its businesses to grow is tightly related to the possibility of exporting and penetrating into foreign markets. The aim of this paper is to study whether bank support can help small businesses (SBs) exporting at the extensive as well as the intensive margin. We...

Using data at the bank‐firm level for a large sample of small firms collected through the 8th UniCredit Survey conducted in 2011, we investigate the extent to which banks of different size reward more innovative firms, in terms of both access to lending and volume of credit granted. First we...

The first wave of the global financial crisis hit Europe in the last part of 2008 and through 2009. With banks in a tailspin, credit rationing intensified – as measured in various different ways – particularly for the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The extent of such retrenchment...

In this paper we study the functioning of the Italian public guarantee fund (“Fondo Centrale di Garanzia”, FCG) for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Using an instrumental variable strategy, based on FCG eligibility, we investigate whether the guarantee generated additional loans and/or...