Narrow Results

This study examines the relationships between entrepreneurs' use of bootstrap financing methods and access to short- and long-term debt capital. By providing additional funding options, bootstrap financing helps alleviate liquidity issues by providing small firms additional sources of capital when more traditional sources are not accessible. Capital constraints can result in firms being unable to successfully compete and often lead to difficulties associated with liquidity constraints. The findings show that use of short- and long-term debt capital is directly associated with the use of bootstrap financing sources. The growing body of research is demonstrating that bootstrap financing is commonly used, but is related to the use of debt capital. These findings contribute to the growing body of research on small firm use of bootstrap financing and can be used by owners of small firms, consultants and educators. Programs that provide educational assistance to owners of small firms, including university courses and practitioner seminars/workshops, can expand the coverage of bootstrap financing in the curriculum.

For China where the interest rate channel is not operative, the bank lending channel plays a major role in propagating the effect of monetary policy changes. This paper conducts a formal test on the validity of bank lending channel in China with two structural vector autoregression (SVAR) models. We find that (i) monetary policy actions affect banks’ balance sheet, but there is no systematic relationship in bank portfolios typically observed in the previous literature; (ii) monetary policy changes lead to a shift in bank loan supply, which supports rather than only being consistent with the lending view.

Reducing credit procyclicality represents one of the key challenges on the regulatory agenda to reform the financial system architecture. Some early experiences may provide some insights on how countercyclical regulations may be effective. The Spanish dynamic provisions scheme implemented in 2000 is one of the main reference points in this context. We analyze the effects of dynamic provisions on managerial accounting discretion and ex-ante risk-taking behavior by banks. We empirically examine a sample of Spanish banks using quarterly information from 1995Q1 to 2013Q4. Our findings suggest that the counter-cyclicality of provisions has been reduced over time, as it has also been the case of managerial discretion (income smoothing and profit signaling). However, the results suggest that banks game on dynamic provisions by taking an ex-ante riskier behavior once the dynamic provisioning scheme is adopted.