《外文翻译---中小企业融资在欧洲：介绍和概述-企业融资》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《外文翻译---中小企业融资在欧洲：介绍和概述-企业融资（13页珍藏版）》请在金锄头文库上搜索。
1、附录C引用的外文文献及其译文SME Financing in Europe: Introduction and OverviewIntroducing the topic of SME finance and summarising the main findings of the contributions to this edition of the EIB Papers, this overview stresses the importance of relationship banking for the supply of SME credit; points out the di
2、fferences and similarities in the capital structure of firms across size classes and across Europe; observes that while there is little evidence of widespread SME credit rationing, financial market imperfections may nevertheless curb SME growth; and highlights that the changes in Europes financial l
3、andscape - including bank consolidation and Basel II - promise to foster SME finance.1. Introduction Some of the changes in Europes financial landscape should work in favour of SME finance. Firstly, new information and communication technologies contribute, at a lower cost, to reducing information a
4、symmetries between lenders and borrowers, thereby making SME lending more attractive (see, among others, Frame et al. 2001). Secondly, partly due to progress in information technology, new banking methods are being developed and implemented. For instance, banks adopt new portfolio credit risk models
5、 that allow them to allocate and price their resources more effectively.Moreover, the use of credit risk transfer mechanisms (such as the securitarisation of SME loans) is spreading, allowing banks to focus on comparative-advantage activities, notably credit risk assessment, loan origination, and cr
6、edit risk monitoring - all activities crucial for the provision of finance to SMEs. Thirdly, equity capital is becoming increasingly available to SMEs through the development of (secondary) capital markets and venture capital finance. Fourthly, the second banking directive of the EU aims at boosting
7、 competition between banks, thereby improving the terms and conditions of bank finance, including those supplied to SMEs. Other features of Europes financial landscape have raised concerns about a possible deterioration of conditions for SME finance. Firstly, consolidation in national banking market
8、s has reduced the number of banks and has in many EU countries, especially in the smaller ones, increased the market share of the top-five largest institutions . This may be detrimental to SME lending since there is evidence that large banks devote a lesser proportion of their assets to small busine
9、ss loans in comparison to small, often regional banks.1 Secondly, there is evidence (Davis, this volume) that capital markets and institutional investors are gaining ground over banks. Institutional investors are in competition with banks when collecting savings in the economy, but they tend to lend
10、 less to SMEs than banks do. Thirdly, a new capital adequacy framework for banks (Basel II) is in the making. The thrust of Basel II is to better align capital charges and, by extension, interest rates on loans with underlying credit risks. As SME lending is often perceived, rightly or wrongly, as p
11、articularly risky, many observers - in particular SMEs themselves - have been vocal in warning against a (further) deterioration of SME finance. why financing of SMEs tends to be more challenging than financing of large firms. Reflecting these challenges, small businesses often have no other choice
12、than to rely on bank relationships for their external financing while large firms may turn to banks as well as capital markets.We will also elaborate on the benefits and costs of relationship banking and briefly consider the impact of bank competition on relationship banking. In Section 3, we discus
13、s the capital structure of the average European firm across different size classes and review similar results for Italy, Germany, and France. In Section 4, we evaluate whether SMEs in Europe suffer from credit constraints and whether financial market imperfections hamper the growth of companies. Sec
14、tion 5 begins with a brief empirical description of relationship banking in the three countries covered here and continues with an evaluation of the impact of bank consolidation on relationship banking in France. 2. Capital structure of the average firm across size classesIn analysing the capital st
15、ructure of firms, Wagenvoort distinguishes five different sizeclasses: very small, small, medium-sized, large, and very large firms. To motivate this analysis, one needs to bear in mind that a possible lack of external financing for small businesses could show up on the liability side of their balan
16、ce sheet. Looking over a long period and at Europe as a whole, the ratio of equity to total liabilities is broadly similar across size classes and, therefore, leverage is more or less the same for a typical SME and a typical large firm. The ratio of financial debt to total liabilities, which mainly contains bank loans in the case of SMEs,3 is also roughly equal across size classes. However, Wagenvoort also shows t
