Credit Constraints as a Barrier to the Entry and Post-Entry Growth of Firms

45 Pages Posted: 23 May 2008

See all articles by Philippe Aghion

Philippe Aghion

College de France and London School of Economics and Political Science, Fellow; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Thibault Fally

UC Berkeley - ARE Department

Stefano Scarpetta

OECD, Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Date Written: May 2008

Abstract

Advanced market economies are characterized by a continuous process of creative destruction. Market forces and technological developments play a major role in shaping this process, but institutional and policy settings also influence firms' decision to enter, to expand if successful and to exit if competition becomes unbearable. In this paper, we focus on the effects of financial development on the entry of new firms and the expansion of successful new businesses. Drawing from harmonized firm-level data for 16 industrialized and emerging economies, we find that access to finance matters most for the entry of small firms and in sectors that are more dependent upon external finance. This finding is robust to controlling for other potential entry barriers (labor market regulations and entry regulations). On the other hand, financial development has either no effect or a negative effect on entry by large firms. Access to finance also helps new firms expand if successful. Both private credit and stock market capitalization are important for promoting entry and post entry growth of firms. Altogether, these results suggest that, despite significant progress over the past decade, many countries, including those in Continental Europe, should improve their financial markets so as to get the most out of creative destruction, by encouraging the entry of new (especially small) firms and the post-entry growth of successful young businesses.

Keywords: financial development, entry, post-entry growth, firm size, micro data

JEL Classification: D21, D92, L11, G32

Suggested Citation

Aghion, Philippe and Fally, Thibault and Scarpetta, Stefano, Credit Constraints as a Barrier to the Entry and Post-Entry Growth of Firms (May 2008). IZA Working Paper No. 3237, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1136399 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1136399

Philippe Aghion (Contact Author)

College de France and London School of Economics and Political Science, Fellow ( email )

London
United Kingdom

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Thibault Fally

UC Berkeley - ARE Department ( email )

Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

HOME PAGE: http://are.berkeley.edu/~fally/

Stefano Scarpetta

OECD, Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs ( email )

2 rue Andre Pascal
Paris Cedex 16, 75016
France
+33 1 45 24 19 88 (Phone)
+33 1 45 24 18 59 (Fax)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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