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Economic Freedom, Ownership Structure, and SME Financial Fragility: Evidence from an Emerging Economy

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Abstract

This paper examines the impact of economic freedom on the financial fragility of 1,496 non-financial SMEs in Vietnam over the period 2012–2020. We also evaluate the effect of ownership structure on the relationship between economic freedom and financial fragility. Our findings provide evidence that an increase in the degree of aggregated economic freedom and its categories – rule of law, regulatory efficiency, and market openness – help firms reduce the level of financial fragility. However, an increased government size tends to worsen their financial risk. Regarding the impact of ownership, our results reveal that greater rule of law, regulatory efficiency, and market openness have a positive influence on foreign-owned firms, enabling them to maintain lower levels of financial fragility compared to non-foreign-owned firms. However, foreign-owned firms experience a higher level of financial fragility relative to domestically private-owned firms due to increased government size. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that there is no difference in the effect of economic freedom on financial fragility between state-owned and non-state-owned firms in Vietnam. This finding has implications for recognizing the importance of foreign ownership and economic freedom in emerging markets. It also encourages foreign shareholders to design appropriate policies to mitigate financial risk.

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Notes

  1. This capsule of information is available at https://www.heritage.org/index/about.

  2. According to Heritage Foundation, the overall score of economic freedom is calculated as an average of 12 indicators taking values between 0 and 100, such that a higher value of any indicator implies a higher level of economic freedom. Rule of Law is assessed using three indices: property rights, judicial effectiveness, and government integrity. “Property rights encompass the acknowledgment of private property rights and the existence of an efficient rule of law to safeguard them. Judicial effectiveness necessitates a well-operating legal framework that safeguards the rights of all individuals against violations committed by others, including governments and influential entities. Government integrity relates to the systemic corruption within government institutions, characterized by practices such as bribery, nepotism, cronyism, patronage, embezzlement, and graft”. Government Size is represented by three indices corresponding to tax burden, government spending, and fiscal health. Regulatory efficiency comprises three components: business freedom, labor freedom, and monetary freedom. “Business freedom signifies an individual’s capacity to establish and operate an enterprise without excessive state intervention. Labor freedom entails the ability of individuals to access employment opportunities and the freedom of businesses to engage in flexible labor contracts and dismiss surplus workers when necessary. Monetary freedom necessitates a stable currency and market-determined prices. Indicators of monetary freedom include a commitment to combating inflation and the independence of the central bank.”

  3. We also use the 20% threshold in our robustness test; refer to Tran et al. (2021).

  4. To be more specific, the definitions of the variables used in this study are summarized in Table 1.

  5. The correlation matrix assists us in identifying potential issues of multicollinearity that could result in spurious estimation. Our untabulated test results indicate that the variance inflation factors (VIFs) of the explanatory variables have a mean value of 1.23, with a maximum of 1.76. These values suggest that multicollinearity is unlikely to be a problem.

    Table 3 Correlation coefficient matrix The presented table displays the correlation coefficient matrix encompassing all independent variables. It encompasses a total of 8,064 firm-year observations from 1,496 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam during the period of 2012 to 2020. Definitions for the variables are presented in Table 1
    Full size table

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Doan, AT. Economic Freedom, Ownership Structure, and SME Financial Fragility: Evidence from an Emerging Economy. Asia-Pac Financ Markets (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10690-023-09438-3

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