SME Financing in Japan during the Global Financial Crisis: Evidence from Firm Surveys

Arito Ono and Iichiro Uesugi

No 6, HIT-REFINED Working Paper Series from Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract: Employing data from a unique firm survey, this article examines small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) financing in Japan during the global financial crisis. The major findings of the article are two-fold. First, in terms of credit availability, loans extended by main banks were the “first line of defense” for most Japanese SMEs to deal with the crisis. In contrast, the role of trade credit provided by firms’ main suppliers was relatively limited. The Emergency Credit Guarantees (ECG) program introduced by the government in response to the crisis also helped to increase credit availability. Second, in terms of firms’ ex-post performance, loans extended by firms’ main bank and loans backed by government policy measures did not have any measurable impact. While the average profitability of firms that received these loans deteriorated more than that of firms that did not in 2009, the difference between these two groups vanished after 2010.

Keywords: SME financing; main bank; trade credit; credit guarantees (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G21 G28 G30 G38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 64 pages
Date: 2014-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-ent and nep-sbm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hit:remfce:6

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