Title: Small business access to bank leverage under crisis circumstances

Authors: Ramzi Benkraiem

Addresses: Audencia Business School, Nantes, France, 8 Route de la Jonelière, 44312 Nantes Cedex 3, France

Abstract: This article relies on a dynamic theoretical framework to empirically investigate corporate drivers of small business access to bank leverage during the global crisis period. The empirical analysis leads to several interesting results. In particular, indicators of size and tangibility are positively related to bank leverage proxies. Moreover, they are by far more important than those of profitability, growth and earnings volatility in explaining access to bank leverage. These findings lay stress on the need of small businesses, above all, to provide sufficient guarantees when they wish to incur new bank leverage under crisis circumstances. Thus, they contribute to the debate on small business financing at a time when consequences of the global crisis on this category of firms are more and more evoked.

Keywords: bank leverage; small businesses; global financial crisis; small firms; access to finance; small business funding.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2016.079419

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2016 Vol.29 No.3, pp.390 - 397

Received: 18 Jul 2015
Accepted: 18 Jul 2015
Published online: 28 Sep 2016 *

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