Credit from suppliers is an important source of finance for firms. It can sustain firms' financial flexibility even in periods of downturn. In this study, using a large database of 90,763 Italian firms in the 2015-2021 period, we investigated how local financial development affects the trade...

Direct public support for business R&D is a well-established remedy to market failures, yet empirical evidence on its effectiveness yields conflicting results. The paper investigates the impact of the first European public R&D grant program targeting small and medium enterprises (i.e. the SME...

The COVID-19 pandemic presented great challenges, but also opportunities, to SMEs across Europe. We examine how the "European Innovation Champions" successfully absorbed and reacted to the shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Five different paradoxical behaviors (i.e., planning, liquidity,...

Direct public support for business R&D is a well-established remedy to market failures, yet empirical evidence on its effectiveness yields conflicting results. The paper investigates the impact of the first European public R&D grant program targeting small and medium enterprises (i.e. the SME...