In the first detailed study of the trade debt own cost for the Italian manufacturing firms it is shown that, comparing also self-defined bank lending rationed and non rationed firms, interfirm credit received is, if ever, only slightly more expensive than bank credit. Besides establishing the...

Italy is an ideal candidate for testing the credit view of the transmission mechanism because of a bank-centred financial structure, a sizeable trade debt, and an economy tilted towards small firms. An empirical analysis of trade credit and debt on averaged panel data shows that small firms act...

Italy is an ideal candidate for testing the credit view of the transmission mechanism because of a bank-centred financial structure, a sizeable trade debt, and an economy tilted towards small firms. An empirical analysis of trade credit and debt on averaged panel data shows that small firms act...

Italian firms are top users of trade credit in an international comparison. The paper offers some clues to the determinants of this stylised fact exploiting the answers of about 1900 manufacturing firms on a wide range of contractual features, separately for domestic and foreign counterparties....

The study, aimed at evaluating the likely effects of the EC Directive on late payments, provides direct evidence that interfirm credit received by Italian manufacturing firms is, if ever, only slightly more expensive than bank loans. An econometric exercise shows that financial determinants have...