The access to finance of small and medium sized enterprises in the euro area

Abstract

Although a firm can finance its investment project through a multitude funding sources it does not mean that all firms have equal access to them. In other words, Small and Medium Enterprises rely heavily on bank and trade credit as due to their opaque nature they have limited access to bond and equity financing. This is exactly the goal of this thesis to enhance our understanding of the access to finance of small and medium-sized enterprises by examining the credit outcomes ineuro area focusing on the above two crucial external finance sources for SMEs (bank credit and trade credit).