Bank Support and Export: Evidence from Small Italian Firms

Abstract

The ability of a country and its businesses to grow is tightly related to the possibility of exporting and penetrating into foreign markets. The aim of this paper is to study whether bank support can help small businesses (SBs) exporting at the extensive as well as the intensive margin. We address this issue by using a large database on Italian small firms based on a specific designed survey. We provide an empirical analysis of the role of bank support in affecting the firms’ export decisions. Our results show that among the exporting SBs those using bank services to support their exports have a higher probability of being better placed in both intensive and extensive margin. More importantly, these positive impacts on export are statistically significant only when the main bank of the firm is an internationalized bank. These results have relevant policy implications as well as consequences for the business models of internationalized banks.

Keywords: Small business finance, Margins of export, Bank-firm relationships, External Finance

JEL Classification: F10, G20