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Perceived credit constraints in the European Union

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Abstract

The promotion and support of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is an essential component of policies designed to help improve Europe’s economic performance. A crucial issue is whether SMEs face difficulty obtaining bank loans. Using pre-crisis survey data from 2005 and 2006 for nearly 3,500 SMEs (firms with fewer than 250 employees) in the European Union (EU), we investigate the determinants of perceived bank loan accessibility at the firm level and at the country level. Based on hierarchical (multi-level) binomial logit regressions, our findings show that the youngest and smallest SMEs have the worst perception of access to bank loans. The SMEs in nations with concentrated banking sectors are more positive about loan accessibility. In addition, a high fraction of foreign-owned banks is associated with improved perception of loan accessibility in the EU 15 but not in the EU 10.

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Notes

  1. Alternatively, several authors use firm size as an indicator of the borrower’s reputation. There is, however, little evidence that small firms are riskier than large companies (St. Pierre and Bahri 2011). In fact, Behr and Güttler (2007) find that the effect of firm size on default risk weakens when other control variables are included in the analysis.

  2. However, in Clarke et al. (2006), the managers of SMEs and larger firms in developing and transition countries are not directly asked about their perception of loan accessibility but are rather asked about how problematic access to long-term loans is for their firm’s operations and growth.

  3. Two Member States of the European Union are not represented in the present dataset: Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union in 2007.

  4. Examples include Egeln et al. (1997) and Beck et al. (2006), although the firms are less directly asked about loan accessibility than in this study.

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Acknowledgments

At the time of writing this paper, Erik Canton was employed at the European Commission (DG Enterprise and Industry). The views expressed here are those of the authors and should not be attributed to Ecorys or the European Commission. The authors would like to thank Jozef Konings, Jacques Mairesse, Roy Thurik, seminar participants at the European Commission and Erasmus University Rotterdam, and two anonymous reviewers for useful comments. This study benefited from a grant by the “Van Cappellen Stichting”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecorys Nederland, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Erik Canton

  2. DG Economic and Financial Affairs, European Commission, 1049, Brussels, Belgium

    Isabel Grilo & Josefa Monteagudo

  3. Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Peter van der Zwan

  4. Panteia/EIM Business and Policy Research, Zoetermeer, The Netherlands

    Peter van der Zwan

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  1. Erik Canton
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Correspondence to Peter van der Zwan.

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Canton, E., Grilo, I., Monteagudo, J. et al. Perceived credit constraints in the European Union. Small Bus Econ 41, 701–715 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-012-9451-y

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