融资困难已成为中小企业的发展瓶颈【外文翻译】.doc

1、 外文翻译 原文 Small and medium-size enterprises: Access to finance as a growth constraint Material Source: Journal of Banking and Finance,2006,30:2931-2943. Author: Thorsten Beck 3 Constraints faced by SMEs: Impact on firm size, access to finance and growth While the previous section has shown that it mi

2、ght be difficult to justify the focus on SMEs on grounds of economic development and poverty alleviation, they account for a large share of enterprises and SMEs are the emerging private sector in poor countries, and thus form the base for private sector-led growth (Hallberg,2001). Ayyagari et al.(in

3、 press) show that employment in SMEs, defined as enterprises with up to 250 employees, constitutes over 60% of total employment in manufacturing in many countries (Fig.2). Further, financial and institutional deficiencies might prevent SMEs from growing to their optimal size and thus explain the lac

4、k of an empirical causal link between SMEs and economic development. Thus, it is crucial to understand obstacles to SMEs operation and growth and how they vary with country factors. Both in the developing and developed world small firms have been found to have less access to external finance and to

5、be more constrained in their operation and growth. Recent cross-country firm-level surveys have enabled researchers to not only explore firm-differences within specific countries, but also to compare firms across countries and link differences to country characteristics such as financial and institu

6、tional development. The World Business Environment Survey (WBES) is a unique firm-level survey conducted in 1999 and 2000 for over 10,000 firms in more than 80 countries. First, this database provides information on the obstacles as perceived by the firms and allows researchers to relate these obsta

7、cles to actual firm growth. Second, the database contains information on a broad cross-section of different types of firms, including a large number of small and medium-size enterprises, firms of different ownership and organizational structure. 3.1 Financing constraints, access to finance and growt

8、h: The importance of size Firms in the WBES were asked to rate financing and other obstacles, such as infrastructure, crime, macroeconomic instability and corruption in terms of their impact on the operation and growth of the firm. Schiffer and Weder(2001) show that small firms consistently report h

9、igher growth obstacles than medium-size or large firms.Beck et al.(in press) show that size, age and ownership are the most reliable predictors of firms financing obstacles. The authors find that older, larger and foreign-owned firms report lower financing obstacles. The relationship is not only sta

10、tistically but also economically significant. The probability that a small firm lists financing as a major obstacle (as opposed to moderate, minor or no obstacle) is 39% compared to 36% for medium-size firms and 32% for large firms. The higher financing obstacles that small firms report match not on

11、ly anecdotal evidence from both developed and developing countries; they also confirm theorys predictions. In a world with fixed transaction costs and information asymmetries, small firms with demand for smaller loans face higher transaction costs and face higher risk premiums since they are typical

12、ly more opaque and have less collateral to offer. Not surprisingly, the data also show that small firms finance a smaller share of their investment with formal sources of external finance (Beck er al.2004b). As shown in Fig.3, small firms finance on average 13% points less of investment with bank fi

13、nance compared to large firms. While there are no significant differences in the case of lease finance, larger firms finance a greater share of investment with equity and perhaps surprisingly with development finance than small firms. On the other hand, smaller firms finance a larger share of invest

14、ment with informal sources of finance, such as moneylenders or family and friends. Do the higher financing obstacles that small firms report actually constrain their growth or do they find ways around these obstacles? Beck et al. (2005c) find that the higher Fig. 3. Financing patterns across firms o

15、f different sizes. This graph shows the predicted share of investment financed with bank, equity, lease, supplier, development bank and informal finance by (i) small, (ii) medium-size, and (iii) large firms, from a regression of the respective financing share on size dummies and other firm and count

16、ry characteristics. Source: Beck et al. (2004b). Fig. 4. The effect of financing obstacles on firms of different sizes. This graph shows the effect of financing, legal and corruption obstacles on firm growth and is based on a regression of firm growth on the respective growth obstacle, interacted wi

17、th dummy variables for small, medium-size and large firms, and controlling for other firm and country characteristics. Source: Beck et al. (2005c). Obstacles faced by smaller firms indeed translate into slower growth. As shown in Fig.4, small firms financing obstacles have almost twice the effect on

18、 annual growth that large firms financing obstacles do. The difference is even stronger in the case of growth constraints related to the legal system and to corruption, where small firms suffer more than three times as much in the form of slower growth as large firms. Small firms thus do not only re

19、port facing higher growth obstacles, these higher obstacles are also more constraining for their operation and growth than in the case of medium-size and large firms. 3.2. Financing constraints, access to finance and growth: The importance of institutions The newly available cross-country firm-level

20、 surveys do not only allow researchers to assess the differences in financing constraints and patterns across firms of different sizes, but also to explore the effect of different policies on these differences. Beck et al.(in press) show that institutional development, broadly defined, is the most s

21、ignificant country characteristic that can explain cross-country variation in firms financing obstacles, even after controlling for cross-country income per capita variation. Firms in countries with higher levels of institutional development report significantly lower financing obstacles than firms

22、in countries with less developed institutions. The positive effect of financial and institutional development can also be observed in the use of external finance. Better protection of property rights increases external financing of small firms significantly more than it does for large firms, particu

23、larly due to the differential impact it has on bank and supplier finance (Beck et al., 2004b). Combining firm-level data with indicators of national policies and institutions also helps researchers assess the causes for the missing middle phenomenon observed in many developing countries. For example

24、, Sleuwaegen and Goedhuys (2002) show that smaller firms grow relatively faster in Germany than in Co te dIvoire, while the opposite holds for large firms. What drives these differences in the growth rates of small and large firms in developed and developing countries? Two papers using different met

25、hodologies, aggregation levels and datasets show the extent to which financial and institutional underdevelopment help explain the phenomenon of the missing middle for broad cross-country samples. Using the WBES, Beck et al. (2005c) show that the effect of growth obstacles on firm growth is smaller

26、in countries with better-developed financial and legal systems. And even more, it is the small firms that stand to gain most from financial and institutional development. The effect of financial and legal development on the constraints-growth relationship is significantly stronger for small firms th

27、an for large firms. Financial and institutional development thus helps close the gap between small and large firms. Using cross-industry, cross-country data for 44 countries and 36 industries in the manufacturing sector, Beck et al. (2004a) show that financial development exerts a disproportionately

28、 large positive effect on the growth of industries that are technologically more dependent on small firms. Their results suggest that the furniture industry (an industry with many small firms) should grow 1.4% per annum faster than the spinning industry (an industry with relatively few small firms)

29、in Canada (a country with a well developed financial system) than in India (which has a low level of financial development). Since the average industry growth rate in their sample is 3.4%, this is a relatively large effect. Thus, small firms not only suffer more from market frictions such as transac

30、tion costs and information asymmetries than large firms as discussed above but these market frictions have a disproportionately larger effect on small firms in countries with less developed institutions. The constraining effect of financial and institutional underdevelopment also shows up in a disto

31、rted size distribution. Kumar et al. (1999) find that the average size of firms in human capital-intensive and R&D intensive industries is larger in countries with better property rights and patent protection. Similarly, Beck et al. (2006) show in a cross country sample that large firms, i.e. firms

32、that are most likely to be able to choose the boundaries of the firm are larger in countries with better-developed financial and legal systems. Using a sample of largest listed firms across 44 countries, they show that firms are larger in countries with higher levels of Private Credit to GDP, a stan

33、dard measure of financial intermediary development. They find also evidence although less robust that firms are larger in countries with more rapid judicial conflict resolution mechanisms and better property right protection. These results suggest that agency problems between outside investors and c

34、orporate insiders keep firms smaller in countries with weak legal and financial systems. While focusing on large firms, they conjecture that this finding is relevant for the universe of enterprises and might render programs to foster SME growth ineffective and even counterproductive in countries wit

35、h weak financial and legal systems, as small firms may choose to stay small rather than grow. Similarly, using data across Mexican states, Laeven and Woodruff (2003) show that legal system efficiency is positively associated with firm size, an effect that is strongest in sectors where proprietorship

36、s dominate. This suggests that more effective legal systems increase investment by firm owners by reducing the idiosyncratic risk proprietors face. The finding of a positive association between financial and legal development and firm size has important implications for SME-promotion policies. If in

37、 the absence of well-developed institutions, it is optimal for firms to stay small, efforts to promote growth of SMEs cannot be expected to be successful, unless institutional shortcomings are addressed first. How do financing patterns of SMEs in todays developing economies compare with the financin

38、g patterns of SMEs in yesterdays developing economies? Cull et al. (2006) explore a new angle in the debate on financing patterns of SMEs by analyzing the financial resources available to SMEs in the core North Atlantic economies during the 19th and early 20th centuries. They find that the main inst

39、itutions associated with modern finance banks and securities markets were of marginal significance to SMEs, but an impressive variety of local institutions emerged to supply their needs. These intermediaries ranged from notaries in France that in the absence of readily available information took a b

40、roker function in obtaining financing for SMEs to the cooperative movement in Germany and other countries that focused on local SME lending. Most of these institutions were demand driven and were established through private initiative. While governments played little role in creating these instituti

41、ons, they allowed their emergence through a generally permissive regulatory environment. While focusing on the 19th century, their findings offer some lessons for todays policy makers in developing countries: providing the necessary contractual and informational frameworks for financial institutions

42、 to prosper and the incentives for informal enterprises to convert into formal ones can help establish the conditions for the necessary institutions to emerge. In developing countries, finance from friends and family play a much more significant role than industrialized countries. More generally, SM

43、Es in many developing countries get around market failures and lack of formal institutions by creating private governance systems in the form of long-term business relationships and tight, ethnically-based, business networks. However, there is variation in access to such networks across ethnic group

44、s as discussed by Biggs and Shah (2006). Indian entrepreneurs in East Africa, Lebanese firms in West Africa and European enterprises in Southern Africa form business networks whose members lend to each other, provide personal references and ease transactions with an informal contract enforcement sys

45、tem based on reputation. These networks help overcome the problems of asymmetric information and weak formal contract enforcement systems. Advantages of networks even extend to new entrants who start out twice as large in terms of assets as new entrants outside the ethnic networks and get immediate

46、access to supplier credit without having to build up a reputation and relationships (Biggs and Shah). While networks with private institutional support systems help their members overcome deficiencies in their economies institutional environment, they have a discriminatory effect on non-members who

47、can effectively be excluded from market exchanges. This has not only negative repercussions for equity, but also provides for a static pattern of business exchange, with little competition and innovation. 译文 融资困难已成为中小企业的发展瓶颈 资料来源：银行与金融期刊， 2006 年， 30:2931-2943 作者： 托贝克 3 中小企业面临的发展限制：融资和发展对企业规模的影响 前面几章

48、已经说明证明中小企业能够对经济发展和贫困问题的缓解起作用。中小企业在所有企业中占据了很大比重。而且在欠发达国家中，它们成为了私营经济导向型发展的基础。数据显示在很多国家，雇工 250人以下的企业构成了制造业领域 60%的就业量。另外，资金和制度的缺失可能会阻碍中小企业向其最优规模发展，这也成为了中小企业和经济发展缺少必要 联系的原因。因此，了解限制中小企业运营发展的障碍和国家所受的影响是很必要的。 无论是发达国家还是发展中国家的小公司都面临着缺乏获取资金渠道和运营发展受限的困扰。近期一个跨国性的公司调查已经使研究者不但能够探求单个国家内公司之间的差别，而且可以对不同国家之间的公司进行比较，并将

49、之与国家间存在的融资和体制层面的差异联系起来。世界商业环境调查（ WBES）是一份在 1999年和 2000年间开展于 80多个国家的 10000多家公司间的调查。首先，这份数据提供了企业实际面临困难的相关信息，并可以让研究学者将企业发展和障 碍联系起来。其次，该数据包含了多个部门的很多种不同类型的企业，如大量的中小企业和产权、组织结构都不同的公司。 3.1 融资限制影响资金和发展：企业规模的重要性 很多公司都被 WBES问及融资和其他障碍对公司运营和发展的影响，例如基础设施、犯罪率、宏观经济不稳定性和腐败等。 Schiffer和 Weder说小公司远比大中型企业面临更多的发展障碍。 Beck发现公司的规模，年份及所有权和企业面临的问题最有关联性。那些历史悠久的，大型的外资公司报告了较少的融资限制。这些联系不仅体现在数据上，而且体现在经济层面上。小公司列 举了融资为主要障碍的达到 39%，这一数据在大中型企业分别是 32%和 36%。小公司报告的如此多的融资障碍不仅符合来自发展中和发达国家的相关证据，而且也印证了理论的预测性。在那些有固定交易成本和信息不对称的地区，想得到小额信贷的公司不得不面临更高的交易成本和保险金，因为这些公司大多财务不透明并缺少抵押物。 数据显示小公司的资金中只