Trade Credit and Bank Lending: An Investigation into the Determinants of UK Manufacturing Firms' Access to Trade Credit

Simona Mateut and Paul Mizen

No ECO2003/03, Economics Working Papers from European University Institute

Abstract: Trade credit is an important source of finance for firms, but it has typically been excluded from the analysis of the credit channel. In this paper we examine a panel of 16,000 manufacturing firm records for the years 1990 through 1999. We show that the uptake of trade credit varies with the monetary cycle, increasing when interest rates are high and falling when rates fall; this offers indirect evidence in support of the bank lending channel. We discover that suppliers evaluate the creditworthiness of firms on much the same basis as banks, with solvency, credit risk and age all improving the access to trade credit. We conclude that trade credit is taken up by firms as a substitute for bank finance at the margin when they are credit constrained.

JEL-codes: E44 E52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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