Public financing and entrepreneurship: behaviour and regional heterogeneity of SMEs

The existence of restrictions for small- and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) to access long-term credit has led governments to establish institutionalsystems to facilitate such access and reduce the cost of credit, with the conditionthat its feasibility is justified (and assessed) and there are no distortions as regardscompetition. Very few empirical in-depth studies exist regarding this field of academicresearch, and scarce attention has been paid from a regional perspective.Due to the characteristics of the business structures in the different regions, as wellas the existence of agglomeration economies and the regional dispersion of the entrepreneurshiprate, this paper analyses the effects of the productive financing supportmodel, provided by the Government of Spain, through the Instituto de CréditoOficial (ICO) [Official Credit Institute], on the behaviours and performances of thebeneficiary companies. In the last decade, this source of financing has assigned30,000 million euro. The results show the general acceptance of this policy due toits adaptation to the interests of the companies and its contribution to the improvementof the economic-financial efficiency indicators. Regionally, no substantialdifferences have been observed, but the results of this research show a greater contributionto the dynamism of the more progressive regions.