IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eca/wpaper/2013-302090.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Identifying Financial Constraints

Author

Listed:
  • Laurens Cherchye
  • Bram De Rock
  • Annalisa Ferrando
  • Klaas Mulier
  • Marijn Verschelde

Abstract

We propose a new methodology to recover firm-year level financial constraints from firms' production behavior. We model financial constraints as the profitability that firms forgo when budget constraints on input costs bind, impeding them from using the optimal level inputs and technology in the production process. We estimate and validate our measure using a unique dataset combining firms' balance sheets from 2005 to 2015 in five Euro Area countries with survey information on firms' self-reported financial constraints, such as actual loan rejections or discouragement. Further, we show that our measure recovers the country-specific trends of financial constraints during the financial and sovereign debt crisis, and correlates only weakly with the three most popular indices of financial constraints.

Suggested Citation

  • Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Annalisa Ferrando & Klaas Mulier & Marijn Verschelde, 2020. "Identifying Financial Constraints," Working Papers ECARES 2020-04, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    • Handle: RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/302090
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/302090/3/2020-04-CHERCHYE_DEROCK_FERRANDO_MULIER_VERSHELDE.pdf
    File Function: Œuvre complète ou partie de l'œuvre
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McFadden, Daniel, 1978. "Cost, Revenue, and Profit Functions," Histoy of Economic Thought Chapters, in: Fuss, Melvyn & McFadden, Daniel (ed.),Production Economics: A Dual Approach to Theory and Applications, volume 1, chapter 1, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought.
    2. Van Biesebroeck, Johannes, 2005. "Firm Size Matters: Growth and Productivity Growth in African Manufacturing," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(3), pages 545-583, April.
    3. Afriat, Sidney N, 1972. "Efficiency Estimation of Production Function," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 13(3), pages 568-598, October.
    4. Chad Syverson, 2011. "What Determines Productivity?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 326-365, June.
    5. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Laeven, Luc & Maksimovic, Vojislav, 2006. "The determinants of financing obstacles," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 932-952, October.
    6. Daniel S. Hamermesh & Gerard A. Pfann, 1996. "Adjustment Costs in Factor Demand," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(3), pages 1264-1292, September.
    7. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Martinez Peria, Maria Soledad, 2007. "Reaching out: Access to and use of banking services across countries," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 234-266, July.
    8. Ferrando, Annalisa & Mulier, Klaas, 2013. "Do firms use the trade credit channel to manage growth?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 3035-3046.
    9. Emanuele Forlani & Ralf Martin & Giordano Mion & Mirabelle Muûls, 2023. "Unraveling Firms: Demand, Productivity and Markups Heterogeneity," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(654), pages 2251-2302.
    10. Lamont, Owen & Polk, Christopher & Saa-Requejo, Jesus, 2001. "Financial Constraints and Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(2), pages 529-554.
    11. Julia I. Lane & John C. Haltiwanger & James Spletzer, 1999. "Productivity Differences across Employers: The Roles of Employer Size, Age, and Human Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 94-98, May.
    12. Laurens Cherchye & Thomas Demuynck & Bram De Rock & Marijn Verschelde, 2018. "Nonparametric Production Analysis with Unobserved Heterogeneity in Productivity," Working Papers ECARES 2018-25, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    13. Stéphane Blancard & Jean-Philippe Boussemart & Walter Briec & Kristiaan Kerstens, 2006. "Short- and Long-Run Credit Constraints in French Agriculture: A Directional Distance Function Framework Using Expenditure-Constrained Profit Functions," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 88(2), pages 351-364.
    14. Campello, Murillo & Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R., 2010. "The real effects of financial constraints: Evidence from a financial crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 470-487, September.
    15. Olley, G Steven & Pakes, Ariel, 1996. "The Dynamics of Productivity in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(6), pages 1263-1297, November.
    16. Joan Farre-Mensa & Alexander Ljungqvist, 2016. "Do Measures of Financial Constraints Measure Financial Constraints?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(2), pages 271-308.
    17. Degryse, Hans & De Jonghe, Olivier & Jakovljević, Sanja & Mulier, Klaas & Schepens, Glenn, 2019. "Identifying credit supply shocks with bank-firm data: Methods and applications," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    18. Hanoch, Giora & Rothschild, Michael, 1972. "Testing the Assumptions of Production Theory: A Nonparametric Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 256-275, March-Apr.
    19. Steven M. Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 1988. "Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1), pages 141-206.
    20. Mary Amiti & David E. Weinstein, 2018. "How Much Do Idiosyncratic Bank Shocks Affect Investment? Evidence from Matched Bank-Firm Loan Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 525-587.
    21. Daniel A. Ackerberg & Kevin Caves & Garth Frazer, 2015. "Identification Properties of Recent Production Function Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 2411-2451, November.
    22. Fuss, Melvyn & McFadden, Daniel (ed.), 1978. "Production Economics: A Dual Approach to Theory and Applications," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780444850133.
    23. Matthias M M Buehlmaier & Toni M Whited, 2018. "Are Financial Constraints Priced? Evidence from Textual Analysis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(7), pages 2693-2728.
    24. James Levinsohn & Amil Petrin, 2003. "Estimating Production Functions Using Inputs to Control for Unobservables," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 317-341.
    25. Hyunok Lee & Robert G. Chambers, 1986. "Expenditure Constraints and Profit Maximization in U.S. Agriculture," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 68(4), pages 857-865.
    26. Robert E. Hall, 2004. "Measuring Factor Adjustment Costs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(3), pages 899-927.
    27. Varian, Hal R., 1990. "Goodness-of-fit in optimizing models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1-2), pages 125-140.
    28. Greenwald, Bruce & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1988. "Pareto Inefficiency of Market Economies: Search and Efficiency Wage Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 351-355, May.
    29. Takeo Hoshi & Anil Kashyap & David Scharfstein, 1991. "Corporate Structure, Liquidity, and Investment: Evidence from Japanese Industrial Groups," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(1), pages 33-60.
    30. Toni M. Whited & Guojun Wu, 2006. "Financial Constraints Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 531-559.
    31. Bruno Merlevede & Matthijs De Zwaan & Karolien Lenaerts & Victoria Purice, 2015. "Multinational Networks, Domestic,and Foreign Firms in Europe," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 15/900, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    32. Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirgüç‐Kunt & Vojislav Maksimovic, 2005. "Financial and Legal Constraints to Growth: Does Firm Size Matter?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 137-177, February.
    33. Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, 2014. "The Employment Effects of Credit Market Disruptions: Firm-level Evidence from the 2008-9 Financial Crisis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(1), pages 1-59.
    34. Rolf Färe & Shawna Grosskopf & Hyunok Lee, 1990. "A Nonparametric Approach to Expenditure-Constrained Profit Maximization," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 72(3), pages 574-581.
    35. John Asker & Allan Collard-Wexler & Jan De Loecker, 2019. "(Mis)Allocation, Market Power, and Global Oil Extraction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1568-1615, April.
    36. Robert E. Carpenter & Steven M. Fazzari & Bruce C. Petersen, 1998. "Financing Constraints And Inventory Investment: A Comparative Study With High-Frequency Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 513-519, November.
    37. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 2009. "On estimating firm-level production functions using proxy variables to control for unobservables," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 112-114, September.
    38. Varian, Hal R, 1984. "The Nonparametric Approach to Production Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 579-597, May.
    39. Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, "undated". "The Employment Effects of Credit Market Disruptions: Firm-level Evidence from the 2008-09 Financial Crisis," Working Paper 90811, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    40. Robert E. Lucas & Jr., 1967. "Adjustment Costs and the Theory of Supply," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(4), pages 321-321.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kling, Gerhard, 2021. "Measuring financial exclusion of firms," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    2. Bijnens, Gert & Hutchinson, John & Konings, Jozef & Saint Guilhem, Arthur, 2021. "The interplay between green policy, electricity prices, financial constraints and jobs: firm-level evidence," Working Paper Series 2537, European Central Bank.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Annalisa Ferrando & Klaas Mulier & Marijn Verschelde, 2018. "Identifying Financial Constraints from Production Data," Working Papers ECARES 2018-31, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. Laurens Cherchye & Thomas Demuynck & Bram De Rock & Marijn Verschelde, 2018. "Nonparametric Production Analysis with Unobserved Heterogeneity in Productivity," Working Papers ECARES 2018-25, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    3. Laurens Cherchye & Thomas Demuynck & Bram De Rock & Marijn Verschelde, 2018. "Nonparametric identification of unobserved technological heterogeneity in production," Working Paper Research 335, National Bank of Belgium.
    4. Laurens Cherchye & Thomas Demuynck & Bram De Rock & Cédric Duprez & Glenn Magerman & Marijn Verschelde, 2021. "Structural Identification of Productivity under Biased Technological Change∗," Working Papers ECARES 2021-28, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    5. Philipp Meinen & Ana Cristina Soares, 2022. "Markups and Financial Shocks," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(647), pages 2471-2499.
    6. Jin, Man & Zhao, Shunan & Kumbhakar, Subal C., 2019. "Financial constraints and firm productivity: Evidence from Chinese manufacturing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 275(3), pages 1139-1156.
    7. Gabriele Angori & David Aristei, 2020. "Heterogeneity and state dependence in firms’ access to credit: Microevidence from the euro area," SEEDS Working Papers 0220, SEEDS, Sustainability Environmental Economics and Dynamics Studies, revised Feb 2020.
    8. Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose & Roberto Ganau & Kristina Maslauskaite & Monica Brezzi, 2021. "Credit constraints, labor productivity, and the role of regional institutions: Evidence from manufacturing firms in Europe," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 299-328, March.
    9. Aguiar, Victor H. & Kashaev, Nail & Allen, Roy, 2023. "Prices, profits, proxies, and production," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 666-693.
    10. Levine, Oliver & Warusawitharana, Missaka, 2021. "Finance and productivity growth: Firm-level evidence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 91-107.
    11. Layer, Kevin & Johnson, Andrew L. & Sickles, Robin C. & Ferrier, Gary D., 2020. "Direction selection in stochastic directional distance functions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 280(1), pages 351-364.
    12. Dang, Tam Hoang-Nhat & Balli, Faruk & Balli, Hatice Ozer & Nguyen, Hannah, 2024. "Firm productivity in the Energy-electricity sector over the last two decades with crisis: The role of cross-listing," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    13. Giorgio Brunello & Áron Gereben & Désirée Rückert & Christoph Weiss & Patricia Wruuck, 2022. "Do investments in human and physical capital respond differently to financing constraints?," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 158(1), pages 1-14, December.
    14. Mulier, Klaas & Schoors, Koen & Merlevede, Bruno, 2016. "Investment-cash flow sensitivity and financial constraints: Evidence from unquoted European SMEs," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 182-197.
    15. Mion, Giordano & Jacob, Nick, 2020. "On the productivity advantage of cities," CEPR Discussion Papers 14644, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Doerr, Sebastian & Raissi, Mehdi & Weber, Anke, 2018. "Credit-supply shocks and firm productivity in Italy," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 155-171.
    17. Emanuele Forlani & Ralf Martin & Giordano Mion & Mirabelle Muûls, 2023. "Unraveling Firms: Demand, Productivity and Markups Heterogeneity," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(654), pages 2251-2302.
    18. Théo Nicolas, 2019. "How Do Short-term Financial Constraints Affect SMEs’ Long-Term Investment: Evidence from the Working Capital Channel," Working papers 731, Banque de France.
    19. Marco Bee & Julien Hambuckers, 2020. "Modeling multivariate operational losses via copula-based distributions with g-and-h marginals," DEM Working Papers 2020/3, Department of Economics and Management.
    20. Cherchye, Laurens & De Rock, Bram & Hennebel, Veerle, 2014. "The economic meaning of Data Envelopment Analysis: A ‘behavioral’ perspective," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 29-37.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    financial constraints; identification; production function;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G00 - Financial Economics - - General - - - General
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/302090. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Benoit Pauwels (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/arulbbe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.