The Role of Financial Constraints in Determining Export Status

In spite of the mounting evidence on the advantages of exporters over firms focused solely on their domestic markets, the source of these differences is yet to be explained. The present contribution analyzes the role of financial constraints as one of the key factors determining firm export status. Through a survey of existing literature and an empirical analysis of Slovenian manufacturing firms the role of financial constraints that limit foreign market access to only a subset of the firms is revealed. It is shown that financial constraints, even when other factors are explicitly considered, determine the firms that will be able to enter into foreign markets and financially constrained firms end up exporting less frequently and smaller quantities than could otherwise be expected

The importance of credit for macroeconomic activity: identification through heterogeneity

Bank loans ; Monetary policy - United States ; Macroeconomics

Financing small and medium-size enterprises with factoring: global growth and its potential in eastern Europe

Factoring is a form of asset-based finance where the credit is extended based on the value of the borrower's accounts receivable. In recent years factoring has experienced phenomenal growth and has become an important source of financing-especially short-term working capital-for small and medium-size enterprises and corporations, reaching a worldwide volume of 760 billion euro in 2003. Although the importance of factoring varies considerably around the world, it occurs in most countries and is growing especially quickly in many developing countries. The authors explore the advantages of factoring over other types of lending for firms in developing economies, and discuss the informational, legal, tax, and regulatory barriers to its growth. They also examine the role of factoring in the eight Eastern European countries that became EU members on May 1, 2004-the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia, referred to as the EU 8. The authors conclude that factoring offers key advantages over other lending products and is likely to become more important in these countries, and suggest policies to accelerate its development.Financial Intermediation,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Banking Law,Banks&Banking Reform,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Banks&Banking Reform,Banking Law,Financial Intermediation,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research

How banks can self-monitor their lending to comply with the equal credit opportunity act

The authors provide a step-by-step discussion of how an individual lender in the United States can self-monitor its loan process for compliance with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and provide an empirical example for illustration. Along the way, they discuss the problems faced by individual lenders who attempt to self-monitor their lending process and conclude with a discussion of the continuing, constructive role for bank examiners and regulators in this endeavor.Regulation B: Equal Credit Opportunity

Further evidence on the impact of economic news on interest rates

US interest rates’ overnight reaction to macroeconomic announcements is of tremendous importance when trading fixed income securities. Most of the empirical studies achieved so far either assumed that the interest rates’ reaction to announcements is linear or independent to the state of the economy. We investigate the shape of the term structure reaction of the swap rates to announcements using several linear and non-linear time series models. The empirical results yield several not-so-well-known stylized facts about the bond market. First, and although we used a daily dataset, we find that the introduction of non linear models leads to the finding of a significant number of macroeconomic figures that actually produce an effect over the yield curve. Most of the studies using daily datasets did not corroborate so far this conclusion. Second, we find that the term structure response to announcements can be much more complicated that what is generally found: we noticed at least four types of patterns in the term structure reaction of interest rates across maturities, including the hump-shaped one that is generally considered. Third, by comparing the shapes of the rates’ term structure reaction to announcements with the first four factors obtained when performing a principal component analysis of the daily changes in the swap rates, we propose a first interpretation and classification of these different shapes. Fourth we find that the existence of some outliers in the one-day changes in interest rates usually leads to a strong underestimation of the reaction of interest rates to announcements, explaining the different results obtained between high-frequency and daily datasets: the first type of study seems to lead to the finding of fewer market mover announcements.Macroeconomic Announcements; Interest Rates Dynamic; Outliers; Reaction Function; Principal Component Analysis

Further evidence on the impact of economic news on interest rates

US interest rates'overnight reaction to macroeconomic announcements is of tremendous importance trading fixed income securities. Most of the empirical studies achieved so far either assumed that the interest rates' reaction to announcements is linear or independent to the state of the economy. We investigate the shape of the tern structure reaction of the swap rates to announcements using several linear and non-linear time series models. The empirical results yield several not-so-well-known stylized facts about the bond market. First, and although we used a daily dataset, we find that the introduction of non linear models leads to the finding of a significant number of macroeconomic figures that actually produce an effect over the yield curve. Most of the studies using daily datasets did not corroborate so far this conclusion. Second, we find that the term structure response to announcements can be much more complicated that what is generally found : we noticed at least four types of patterns in the term structure reaction of interest rates across maturities, including the hump-shaped one that is generally considered. Third, by comparing the shapes of the rates' term structure reaction to announcements with the first four factors obtained when performing a principal component analysis of the daily changes in the swap rates, we propose a first interpretation and classification of these different shapes. Fourth, we find that the existence of some outliers in the one-day changes in interest rates usually leads to a strong underestimation of the reaction of interest rates to announcements, explaining the different results obtained between high-frequency and daily datasets : the first type of study seems to lead to the finding of fewer market mover announcements.Macroeconomic announcements, interest rates dynamic, outliers, reaction function, principale component analysis.