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This paper investigates the impact of business strategy on firms’ trade credit policies. We find that firms following an innovation-oriented strategy (prospectors) offer significantly more trade credit to their customers than those following an efficiency-oriented strategy (defenders). Furthermore, by exploiting two exogenous shocks to the supplies of high-skill employees and bank credit, we find that prospectors curtail trade credit in response to the reduction of talent mobility following the adoption of Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine, whereas defenders significantly increase provisions of trade credit following the increase in bank credit supply due to the relaxation in interstate branching regulations. Additional evidence substantiates that prospectors increasing trade credit provisions enjoy higher sales generation efficiency and superior performance. Finally, our supply chain analysis documents that prospectors also receive significantly more trade credit from their suppliers. Collectively, our findings highlight that business strategy is an important yet intrinsic determinant of supply chain financing.

Due to poor ability to resist risks, penniless retailers face high bankruptcy risk, which may spread to suppliers who provide trade credit for them and then affect suppliers’ trade credit provision decision. A supplier who transacts with downstream retailers with heterogeneous credit ratings has three trade credit provision strategies: null (the supplier does not provide trade credit), exclusive (the supplier provides trade credit for only a part of retailers), and nonchalant trade credit provision (the supplier provides trade credit for all retailers). In this study, we establish a two-echelon supply chain model comprising one supplier and two capital-constrained retailers to investigate the supplier’s and retailers’ preferences for different trade credit provision patterns. By analyzing and comparing the three trade credit provision strategies, we find that the supplier is always beneficial from providing nonchalant trade credit. However, nonchalant trade credit provision is only attractive for the excluded retailer when his creditworthiness is poor and for the privileged retailer, nonchalant trade credit provision is never a preferable option, which leads to a counterintuitive situation that the three parties can never reach an agreement on trade credit provision pattern. Our results indicate that credit rating information serves as a risk warner for the supplier, allowing the supplier to evaluate the retailers’ repayment ability accurately and set interest rates accordingly, but this is unfavorable to the retailers. For policy-makers, they should start with reducing the risk of default in trade credit to promote the development of trade credit.

With over half a trillion dollars in trade credit flowing between firms in the United States, it is critically important for managers to understand how the trade credit that their firm receives and provides affect its value. Trade credit is a strategic investment in supply chain relationships that allows the recipient to make payment later rather than at the time of the sale. A firm provides trade credit to its downstream business customers and also receives trade credit from its upstream suppliers. Although research has shown that provided trade credit builds a firm’s shareholder value, it has not examined what effect, if any, received trade credit has on the firm’s value. As a result, one might assume that received trade credit affects firm value in the same manner as provided trade credit. We argue otherwise and show that received trade credit and provided trade credit have differential effects on firm value. Received trade credit has a negative direct effect and a positive indirect effect (through profit), whereas provided trade credit has a positive direct effect and a negative indirect effect. The difference in direct effects hinges on the disparate nature of dependence in the supply chain. Provided trade credit increases customers’ dependence on the firm, building the firm’s value. In contrast, received trade credit increases the firm’s dependence on its suppliers, destroying the firm’s value. Empirical results using a sample of 2804 firms from 1986 to 2017 provide robust support for the hypotheses. They show that managers risk overestimating the value of a 1 SD increase in received (provided) trade credit by $284.74 ($74.95) million, on average, if they do not consider both the direct and indirect effects it has on their firm’s value.

Purpose This study aims to examine the linear and non-linear effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement on trade receivables of listed firms in China. Furthermore, this paper analyzes whether CSR explains the provision for doubtful trade receivables. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a sample of listed firms in China over the period from 2008 to 2015. System generalized method of moments is used to estimate dynamic panel models. Findings CSR is positively related to trade receivables, in line with previous studies in this field. Nonetheless, the investigation of the non-linear effect of CSR reveals that CSR has an inverted U-shaped relationship with trade receivables. This implies that at low levels, CSR is more likely to be a tool to mitigate risk and/or build a trusting relationship between suppliers and buyers; whereas, at high levels, CSR is more prone to be subject to agency cost. The authors further find that CSR has a U-shaped relationship with the provision for bad trade receivables, which substantiates the above link between CSR and trade receivables. Originality/value Previous studies have extensively examined the link between trade credit extension and firm performance and determinants of trade credit. CSR can be connected to trade receivables in some ways, but very little effort has been exerted in verifying this relationship. In addition, CSR is linearly linked to trade receivables in previous literature, but theoretically, it can be expected to have a non-linear relationship with trade receivables. Furthermore, CSR has not been examined as a determinant of the provision for doubtful trade receivables. The authors aim to void the gaps here by using a sample of listed firms in China.

This paper studies wholesale price contracts with risk constraints in a supply chain consisting of a supplier and a capital-constrained retailer. A newsvendor-like retailer may borrow from a bank or use trade credit to fund his business. We construct a mean-variance model to analyze the decisions involved in the design of the wholesale price contract under both trade credit financing and bank credit financing. We characterize the conditions under which the supplier is willing to provide trade credit and those under which the retailer prefers bank credit or trade credit. We find that the supply chain member's risk aversion attitude plays an important role in determining the financing equilibrium. Contrasting with some existing studies, our results show that trade credit financing may lead to a win-win result only when the supplier's risk aversion threshold is moderate.

Accounts receivable, being both a sales and financial category, is a key aspect of the development of modern market relations. At the same time, accounts receivable has become a complex object of only microeconomic research. Insufficient knowledge of accounts receivable at the macro level determined the relevance of the research. The subject area of the research is the total accounts receivable of Russian organizations. The aim of the study is to group Russian regions and types of economic activities depending on the conditions of conducting sales and payment activities. The methodology consists of a systematic approach, which allowed a comprehensive review of the object of research and macroeconomic analysis, which ensured the reliability and validity of the conclusions of the work. As a result, the author defines the total accounts receivable of organizations in the economy as an independent object of macroeconomic research. Based on the results of the analysis for 2000–2019, the author concludes that there is a high degree of correlation between sales revenue and accounts receivable of Russian organizations, as well as the presence of trends in the increasing importance of accounts receivable in sales and the reduction of its overdue part in the finances of organizations. The share of accounts receivable in the total sales revenue of organizations is taken as a generalized characteristic of the conditions for doing business in the sales activities of organizations, and in payment activities — the share of overdue total accounts receivable of organizations. The author’s matrix for express assessment of the conditions for conducting sales and payment activities of organizations in the economy constitutes the scientific novelty of the study. It made it possible to group the types of activities, regions and districts of the Russian Federation, depending on the specified conditions. The prospect for future research of the total accounts receivable of organizations in the economy is the search for tools to determine its optimal volume and structure to timely identify the factors of the upcoming crises of non-payment and overproduction, both in the economy as a whole and in individual commodity markets.

This paper introduces the core enterprise into the traditional accounts receivable financing model, which only includes the bank and the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME), and further analyse...

This paper studies whether the bailout of downstream firms helps stop the supply chain propagation of business failure. By analyzing persistent zombie lending in China, we show that such a bailout policy does not work. Zombie lending to downstream firms does not reduce the exit likelihood of upstream firms. Worse, it distorts efficiency-based firm exit in upstream industries. The exit distortion effect works through the trade credit chain and is more profound in industries with stricter financial constraints and tighter supply chain connections. Our findings reveal the importance of credit allocation efficiency for the Schumpeterian process of creative destruction that is essential for economic growth.

Credit policy is a set of temporary payment terms agreed between seller and buyer, in a form of credit. Credit expedites some of the complicated process organization experienced. Normally, the process required high level approval in order to complete procure activities or business transaction. In Malaysia, the credit policy has become one of the sales tools to secure more business, and identify new business opportunities. However, it is unsure to what extent the credit policy helps on firm performance. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate the relation, the factors and the influence. The research tested on Malaysian manufacturers. A total of 35 survey questionnaires were received from Malaysian manufacturers and the data has been analysed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software. Three out of four dimensional factors were rejected; credit structure, receivables management and inventory control. Only one of the factors was accepted and has significant impact on firm performance which is payables management. The results of the study revealed 41% of firm performance were depending on credit policy. This study fills the gap in the literature of credit policy conducted in Malaysia.

Capital constraint, immensely existing in practice, became major stressors for manufacturers during the green research and development (R & D) triggered by managers integrating green concept into their business models. Considering the initial capital of a capital-constrained manufacturer, this paper formulates a Stackelberg game model comprising a manufacturer and a retailer, to discuss the optimal operation and financing decisions under the bank financing channel and trade credit financing channel, to detect the relationship between the manufacturer’s initial capital and green R & D investment, and to find which financing channel is better by comparing the two financing channels when the same initial capital is set. According to the above analysis, the results find that the capital-constrained manufacturer prefers financing only when meeting certain conditions. Furthermore, financing might be detrimental to the manufacturer but always beneficial to the retailer. Especially, under trade credit financing channel, the profit improvement of the retailer is higher than the manufacturer in the same financing channel, which suggests that the retailer has strong internal motivation to cooperate with the manufacturer from the perspective of financing.

Purpose This study aims to explore changes in working capital management (WCM) practices in response to economic downturns, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts an interpretative approach. This paper used semi-structured interviews with 2 finance directors and 13 top managers for data collection. This paper used thematic analysis for analysing the interview data. Findings The study findings suggest that the traditional ways of managing working capital may no longer be sufficient during a crisis. Instead, dynamic financing, trade credit policy and continuous staff training to develop new skills are alternative WCM practices to navigate the challenges of a crisis. Further, this paper finds that economic conditions, such as inflation rates, interest rates, exchange rates and government policy, negatively affect WCM. Practical implications The study findings highlight practical issues that may help firms meet their present and future financing needs, manage their day-to-day operational activities and enhance performance, both operational and financial. The study is beneficial for regulators in understanding a firm’s constraints during crises and respond appropriately. Originality/value This is the first study, to the best of the knowledge that uses a qualitative approach to investigate the impact of economic downturns on WCM practices of firms. Thus, this study offers new insights into the fundamentals of WCM practices during crises.

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly caused many perturbations, at the same time hindering the functioning and operation of enterprises from various industries, which, due to the often inability to conduct business, found themselves in a very difficult financial situation, with a difficult ability to settle their liabilities. Too high share of receivables that are not settled in a timely manner can result in various problems for enterprises, including, in particular, financial problems that can lead to large-scale bankruptcy. Considering a huge number of connections between individual entities, the bankruptcy of one may pose a risk of a wave of bankruptcy of others. The paper aims to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the payment situation of Polish enterprises. The research was conducted on the basis of an analysis of data on the payment situation of Polish enterprises from selected industries. Basic descriptive statistics was used in the study to characterize the material. The nonparametric Wilcoxon pair order test, which is the equivalent of the Student's t-test for related variables, was used for the research. The research proved that at enterprises from almost every industry, the value of debts at the end of the second quarter of 2020 was higher than in the first quarter. It can therefore be concluded that the outbreak of the pandemic contributed to an increase in arrears, which, in turn, resulted in an increased risk of doing business. The greater the share of arrears with contractors, the greater the risk of financial problems at the enterprise, and hence the increased risk of bankruptcy. © 2021 Robert Dankiewicz, Bartlomiej Balawejder, Tomasz Tomczyk, Viktor Trynchuk.

This study investigates the interaction between suppliers and fraudulent customer firms from the perspective of reputation damage and reputation recovery. Specifically, reputation damage from the regulatory penalty for corporate fraud induces the trust crisis and suppliers respond to fraudulent firms by reducing the trade credit supply. To repair a damaged reputation and rebuild the trust, fraudulent firms raise the ratio of prepayment to purchase volume when purchasing from small suppliers and increase the proportion of purchase from large suppliers in the next year. Channel analysis shows that the declining trust is one of potential mechanisms to reduce the trade credit. Furthermore, the negative effect is more pronounced for fraudulent firms with non-related party suppliers, higher supplier concentration, less analyst coverage, and for fraudulent firms located in regions with less-developed financial environment. Additionally, supplier sanctions have a spillover effect on non-fraudulent customer firms in the same industry. The conclusions are robust to a series of checks, including PSM–DiD, firm and year fixed effect, the alternative measure for trade credit financing, the industry-year fixed effect and the consideration of the monetary policy and financial crisis.

Growing inventory is the set of commodities whose level enhances during the stocking period. This kind of product is normally seen in the poultry industry and livestock farming. In this model, the live newborn is considered to be the initial inventory of the retailer. These are procured and fed until they grow to an ideal weight during the breeding period. Afterward, these are slaughtered and converted to deteriorating items prone to the customer's demand during the consumption period. The poultry industry is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions during feeding, farming, slaughtering, and handling. Consequently, the retailers are enforced to make efforts to reduce the emission which also affects the inventory demeanor. Therefore, the effect of the carbon emissions from the poultry industry has been investigated here. Generally, customers prefer food over the preserved items so shortages are permitted which has been assumed here with partial backlogging. The study has been carried out to investigate the optimum breeding period and optimum livestock inventory. A numerical example and illustrations validate the analytical results. Lastly, a sensitivity analysis has been provided concerning some key parameters.

Motivated by the practices that many small and middle-sized enterprises (SME) retailers have financial constraints due to their limited budget and financing access, this paper studies the manufacturer’s financial strategy (i.e., trade credit versus vertical merger with a capital-constrained retailer) in a supply chain with two financial asymmetric retailers. We first compare the equilibrium profits under different financing modes and find that if manufacturer’s capital cost under trade credit or administrative cost under vertical merger is below a certain threshold, the manufacturer should finance instead of deselect the capital-constrained retailer even though the competition is intensified. Furthermore, manufacturer can choose a financing strategy based on the tradeoff between financing value and cost from trade credit or vertical merger. Under trade credit, the increased horizontal competition intensity is against the capital-constrained retailer while with vertical merger the competition intensity is harmful to the capital-abundant retailer. In addition, through investigating the impact of different financial modes on the equilibrium profits of the supply chain players, we find that whether trade credit can outperform vertical merger for both the manufacturer and the capital-constrained retailer depends on horizontal competition intensity, profit-sharing proportion and administrative cost of vertical merger. Moreover, the capital-abundant retailer will get the lowest profit when other participators act like an alliance. Our study provides a roadmap for the manufacturer to make a financing policy for capital-constrained retailer who competes with a funded retailer.

The aim of this article is to identify the most important factors influencing the use of trade credit and to assess their significance for Polish listed companies taking into consideration the role of trade credit as a source of financing. Theoretical and empirical literature does not provide clear guidance regarding factors influencing the use of trade credit. In this study the linear regression model with fixed effects for years is used to describe trade credit use in listed Polish companies in the period 2002–2018. The findings show that the following factors have the most pronounced influence on the use of trade credit: trade payables in the previous period, trade receivables, long-term debt, liquidity and short-term debt. Both long-term and short-term debt financing and trade payables are substitutes for Polish listed companies. Lower liquidity and higher trade receivables are related to a higher use of trade credit.

PurposeSupply chain finance (SCF), which is able to manage financial flows along the supply chains effectively, has received wide attention from all over the world. Faced with the increasing number of outputs, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the SCF development over the past decades effectively, including the hot topics, knowledge diffusion trajectories and structure.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts the keyword co-occurrence cluster and main path analysis (MPA) including four types of main paths, studying the historical development of SCF based on 2,233 papers retrieved from Web of Science during 1970–2019.FindingsThe results show that: (1) the research focuses on several aspects, including trade credit, supply chain management, procurement, health financing and sustainability, etc. and (2) trade credit financing has been the mainstream and the research focus has shifted from one-level trade credit to two-level trade credit. Recently, there is a trend to use game-theoretic models to find the best solutions for members in the supply chain.Originality/valueThis paper addresses the need to investigate the knowledge evolution in the SCF domain. It provides a framework to study the knowledge diffusion trajectories and structure, which helps scholars to handle thousands of papers effectively and deepen their understanding of the history, present and future trends of SCF development.

Trade credit insurance (TCI) is a risk management tool commonly used by suppliers to guarantee against payment default by credit buyers. TCI contracts can be either cancelable (the insurer has the discretion to cancel this guarantee during the insured period) or noncancelable (the terms cannot be renegotiated within the insured period). This paper identifies two roles of TCI: the (cash flow) smoothing role (smoothing the supplier’s cash flows) and the monitoring role (tracking the buyer’s continued creditworthiness after contracting, which enables the supplier to make efficient operational decisions regarding whether to ship goods to the credit buyer). We further explore which contracts better facilitate these two roles of TCI by modeling the strategic interaction between the insurer and the supplier. Noncancelable contracts rely on the deductible to implement both roles, which may result in a conflict: a high deductible inhibits the smoothing role, whereas a low deductible weakens the monitoring role. Under cancelable contracts, the insurer’s cancelation action ensures that the information acquired is reflected in the supplier’s shipping decision. Thus, the insurer has adequate incentives to perform its monitoring function without resorting to a high deductible. Despite this advantage, we find that the insurer may exercise the cancelation option too aggressively; this thereby restores a preference for noncancelable contracts, especially when the supplier’s outside option is unattractive and the insurer’s monitoring cost is low. Noncancelable contracts are also relatively more attractive when the acquired information is verifiable than when it is unverifiable. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management.

We study the impacts of the use of trade credit on SME financial performance and operational distress in a sample of 74,036 SMEs across 19 EU countries between 2006 to 2015. Under the premise that trade credit acts as a substitute for bank credit, our results show that supplying trade credit improves profitability, but we show little evidence that such an investment is more profitable for bank credit richer SMEs, although such firms did redistribute more bank fund through trade credit to their customers. For receivers, we show that the use of trade credit finance alleviates operational distress, especially for those SMEs facing liquidity constraints, such as those which have less access to bank credit or under credit tightened periods. This distress reduction effect is also reflected in their profitability indicators. However, the longer the average collection period and credit period, the less effective the trade credit effects respectively on improving SME profitability and reducing operational distress.

Although high and advanced technologies are used by the industry to produce high-quality items, few defective items have been produced due to some errors in the technical operation or in maintenance. The defective cost is the expense involving rework, repair, and replacement of defective items and the cost incurred due to loss of goods. The learning function acts as a substantial function for cost diminution. Meanwhile, the impact of learning is an incident that occurs approximately everywhere and enables the workers to carry out new work with better performance after owing repetition over a course of time. Further, a retailer offers buyers an allowable setback time to arrange the money payable to him and no extra fine to a buyer if money is paid within the allowable financing time period. On the other hand, if the cash is not paid on trade-credit financing period of time, the retailer will charge on remaining cash provided by the buyer after the allowed period. Keeping these facts, an inventory model has been developed for imperfect quality items with a learning effect in which demand rate assumes as an exponential function of the trade credit period. The expected total prot function is maximized with respect to trade credit financing period under learning effect. A numerical example is illustrated, and comprehensive sensitivity analysis has also been depicted to understand the robustness of the model.

Received November 14, 2020; accepted March 9, 2021. Дата поступления 14 ноября 2020 г.; дата принятия к печати 9 марта 2021 г. Relevance. Most small-sized firms have little or no access to credit markets, which is why they prefer equity financing and usually pay higher dividends on this equity. When paying higher dividends, these small-sized debt-free firms continue to build a reputation in the markets. Research objective. The analysis focuses on the trade payables that impact shareholder equity. In Pakistan, most of the businesses are small and middle-sized. Most of the Pakistani SMEs have a low capital structure and these enterprises depend on their daily business needs, so equity financing is their primary source of funding. Data and Methods. The data source for our study is the financial statements of non-financial firms (in total, 156 firms) from the balance Sheet Analysis (BSA) and the Financial Statement Analysis (FSA) published by The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). The financial statements also provide the data listed by the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). The data cover the period from 2001 to 2017. This study primarily relies on the panel data model. The study applied the methods of descriptive analysis, correlation matrix, common regression model, fixed effect model, random effect model and then the Hausman test was performed to choose the best model. Results. The results of the study indicate a positive and significant relationship between shareholder equity and trade credit demand. Conclusion. Many investors require trade credit as a suitable tool for the growth of shareholders of the company. It is also used in many types of business schemes as the shareholder equity factor plays a role in profit generation through the use of trade credit transactions. Актуальность. Большинство малых фирм практически не имеют доступа к кредитным рынкам, поэтому они предпочитают акционерное финансирование и обычно выплачивают более высокие дивиденды. Выплачивая более высокие дивиденды, эти небольшие фирмы, не имеющие долгов, продолжают укреплять репутацию на рынках. Цель исследования. Анализ сосредоточен на торговой кредиторской задолженности, которая влияет на акционерный капитал. В Пакистане большинство предприятий малые и средние. Большинство пакистанских МСП имеют низкую структуру капитала, и эти предприятия зависят от своих повседневных деловых потребностей, поэтому акционерное финансирование является их основным источником финансирования. Данные и методы. Источником данных для нашего исследования является финансовая отчетность нефинансовых фирм (всего 156 фирм) из анализа баланса (BSA) и анализа финансовой отчетности (FSA), опубликованных Государственным банком Пакистана (SBP). Финансовая отчетность также содержит данные с Пакистанской фондовой биржи (PSX). Данные охватывают период с 2001 по 2017 г. Это исследование в первую очередь опирается на модель панельных данных. В исследовании применялись методы описательного анализа, корреляционный анализ, общая регрессионная модель, модель с фиксированными эффектами, модель со случайными эффектами, а затем был проведен тест Хаусмана для выбора между ними. Результаты. Результаты исследования указывают на положительную и значимую взаимосвязь между акционерным капиталом и спросом на торговые кредиты. Выводы. Многим инвесторам требуется торговый кредит как подходящий инструмент для роста акционеров компании. Он также используется во многих типах бизнессхем, поскольку фактор акционерного капитала играет роль в получении прибыли за счет использования торговых кредитных операций.

Objective: This article discusses financial liquidity management in the context of enterprise bankruptcy. It looks at the basic causes leading to the bankruptcy of enterprises, including their credit position and how it changed in enterprises that have gone bankrupt. Research Design & Methods: The research methods were the study of the subject literature and the analysis of financial statements and reports of companies that had declared bankruptcy. The companies belonged to different sectors. Findings: Research findings confirmed the following hypothesis: in the time preceding the declaration of bankruptcy, the entity tends to be the recipient of trade credit. Implications / Recommendations: Drawn on the basis of evidence in the literature and empirical research, the conclusions for selected enterprises indicated that problems regarding the maintenance of financial liquidity, illustrated by the credit position, were an important reason bankruptcy was declared. Contribution: The research conducted in this article takes its spot among other analyses of the causes of corporate bankruptcy, which are common in the literature.

This study explores simultaneous reduction strategies of lead time and setup cost in a two-stage supply chain model under trade-credit financing. Lead time depends on a variable production rate and lot size. It consists of setup, production, and transportation time which are shortened to reduce lead time. Although double safety factors are considered to avoid stock-out; but still backorders take place as the demand during the lead time is stochastic. Setup cost is reduced by including an extra investment cost. In addition, the vendor offers a fixed credit period to the buyer to settle the account. The objective is to minimize the integrated expected total cost and optimize the order quantity, number of deliveries, setup and transportation time, setup cost, safety factor for the first batch, and the production rate. A multi-variable optimization technique is used for these purposes. Furthermore, a numerical example together with managerial insights is provided for the establishment and applicability of the proposed model. The numerical results show that the introduction of setup cost reduction and trade-credit financing along with lead time reduction is more beneficial by means of integrated expected total cost reduction.

This study contributes to the existing literature on innovation by examining how manufacturing firms in Africa fund innovation activities. This study specifically seeks to identify whether innovative companies exhibit financing patterns distinct from those of non-innovative ones. Besides, this study seeks to gauge the association between innovation and firm features, such as ISO certification, firm age, exporter firms, firm size, internal funding, top female manager, top managers’ experience, bank financing, obstacle to access to finance, financial constraints, government ownership, and foreign ownership, among others. This study finds that the main drivers of firm innovation in Africa are ISO certification, firm age, firms communicating with customers through emails, and websites, exporter firms, firm size, internal funding, top female manager, top manager’s experience, bank financing, trade credit, firm location, and location size. We also found that only 19.6% of the sampled firms have ISO certification within the last three years. As captured by the innovation index, a summary of the level of innovation among firms shows that only 31.7% of the firms fall within high innovation. The study, therefore, recommends that to salvage the low levels of firm innovation among African firms, it will be prudent to 1) increase R & D spending (the ratio of R & D expenditure to GDP), 2) attract and incentivize highly qualified researchers into public, and privative enterprises, not only into higher institutions of learning, and 3) incentivize and promote patent activities.

We consider a two-echelon supply chain consisting of one dominant supplier and one capital-constrained retailer. The retailer needs to solve the shortage of working capital either from a bank or from its core supplier, which offers trade credit when it is also beneficial to itself. We assume the retailer is risk-averse behavior and the supplier has different risk preference behaviors that jointly model risk-averse, risk-neutral, and risk-taking. With a wholesale price contract, we incorporate each member’s risk preference behavior into its objective function. Then we derive the optimal decisions in a Stackelberg game under bank credit financing and trade credit financing, respectively. We find that there exists a supplier’s risk preference threshold that distinguishes financing scheme. When the supplier is a relatively higher risk preference, trade credit financing makes both the retailer and the supplier better off and is a unique financing equilibrium. Otherwise, the members prefer bank credit financing. Besides, the supplier with relatively higher risk preference behavior prefers the retailer with a low initial capital as a partner; the supplier with relatively lower risk preference behavior prefers the retailer with a higher initial capital level. The above theoretical results are verified by numerical analysis.

This study analyses the role of trade credit insurance and the insuring strategy of the retailer and the manufacturer in a capital-constrained supply chain with one retailer, one manufacturer, and ...

This article provides an empirical investigation of the impacts of economic policy uncertainty on the methods of financing international transactions. Using regression, probit, and ordered logit mo...

The individual and implicit nature of the trade credit cost can provoke its increase, and, as a result, violate payment discipline and negative influence on the business price.This research is dedicated to improving the sale terms definition to minimize the cost of trade credit. The methods for determining the cost of trade credit of a particular company are proposed to apply, considering the results of the comparative analysis of other enterprises from the same industry. Based on the example of Ukrainian food processing enterprises, it was revealed that 66% of them for the period 2013–2018 had an aggressive policy, and in 44% of the cases, it was connected with the growing role of trade credit. Minimum (23 days) and average (79 days) days payable outstanding, defined in the industry, were equated, respectively, to discount period and payment delay. Considering and comparing the cost of trade credit with alternative financial resources, the marginal level of the discount was determined. Considering the rate of short-term credit, according to the failed discount method, this level is 2.7% for 2018; toward the effective annual rate method – 2.48%. In the case of the overdraft, the marginal discount is 2.9% and 2.66%, respectively.When the actual discount is equal or below this level, the buyer attracts trade credit instead of bank loans. Discount higher than marginal, longer discount period, and cheap alternative financing sources provide early payments, positive financial results, and make trade credit free of charge.

Tax and capital play critical roles in the business of multinational firms. This study investigates the optimal financing strategy between bank credit financing and trade credit financing when a multinational firm invests in a capital-constrained retailer located in a low-tax jurisdiction. We find that tax differences and varying dividend rates have significant effects on a multinational firm's decisions. In a basic model, we show a tax-related dividends rate that is less than one but can eliminate double marginalization in bank credit. In trade credit, we find that the optimal wholesale price changes with tax and dividend rate. When both bank and trade credits are viable, we find that the differences in dividends rates and tax rates are two critical factors in determining the optimal strategy, and we investigate the joint effect of these rates on the optimal financing strategy. When examining the impact of tax asymmetry on both retailers’ and multinational firms’ decisions, under bank credit, multinational firms will reduce the wholesale price to induce higher orders, but they will never offer trade credit. When both bank and trade credits are viable alternatives, the optimal financing strategy is bank credit when tax asymmetry exists. Lastly, the production cost threshold value that separates the unique financing equilibrium is lower due to the impact of taxes. Our findings can offer financing insights to both multinational firms and capital-constrained divisions.

In obedience with the economic order quantity model, the ordered lot has 100% good quality items, but this is only suppositional. On examination, it is learnt that some of the produced lots have defective items because of process retrogression and other such factors. Thus, in this situation, the inspection of lots is essential for all organizations when the items are deteriorating in nature. Owing to this fact, an inventory model is proposed for deteriorating items with in-process inspection with learning effect under permissible delay in the payments. The aim of this paper is to study the impact of learning on the ordered quantity under the influence of trade-credit financing. Finally, the expected total profit function is maximized with respect to order quantity under credit financing. This paper, which is an extension of Patro et al. (Int J Manag Decis Mak 17(2): 171–198, 2018) commendable work, makes significant use of permissible delay in payment and proposed an inventory model for deteriorating imperfect quality items with learning effect. A numerical example given ahead shows the verification of results. Results suggest that impact of trade-credit policy is positive on the proposed inventory model. The effect of key parameters on the model is studied by sensitivity analysis to deduce managerial insights.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to verify whether the benefits gained by granting extended payment terms can lead to higher profitability for Italian companies. Moreover, the analysis aims to investigate whether trade credit offered at a higher level than the sector average can contribute to the profitability of companies. Finally, it aims to test whether the profitability connected to granting trade credit is higher for the unconstrained and financially sound companies.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical analyses are conducted on a sample of Italian firms, over the period 2008–2016. The methodologies used to test research hypotheses are panel analysis with fixed effects and random effects models, as well as the generalized method of moment (GMM).FindingsThe results show the contribution of trade credit to the profitability of Italian companies. The empirical analysis also suggests that companies might improve their profitability by increasing investments in trade receivables to a greater extent than companies in their business sector. Finally, the greater use of payables to suppliers and the higher incidence of bank debt reduce the contribution of accounts receivable to the profitability of companies.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the existing literature as very few studies have analyzed whether trade credit offered at a higher level than the sector average may contribute to the profitability of companies. Moreover, the study provides new evidence on the moderation effect of payables to banks and suppliers on the contribution of granting trade credit to company performance.

An enhancement in the financial depth (FD) increases the availability of formal credit to firms. Resultantly credit redistribution (CR) by firms is likely to be reduced as they require less trade credit (TC). To provide evidence, how do managers respond to changes in financial depth while making adjustments in their trade credit policy, this paper aims to study the impact of financial depth on credit redistribution by listed manufacturing firms (LMFs). For the firm-level variables, we used a data set of 327 firms listed on PSX for the period 2005 to 2018. Private credit to GDP ratio and market capitalization to GDP ratio are used as proxies for financial depth. Unlike earlier studies, we applied a two-step System GMM estimator to control the endogeneity. The results of the regression analysis display a positive relationship between the use and the supply of trade credit by LMFs. It reveals that LMFs redistribute credit to their customers through trade credit channel. We found a significant and negative impact of FD on the supply of TC by LMFs. Further, we established that financial depth as a moderator has a buffering impact on the credit redistribution by listed firms. The study highlights the moderating role of FD and suggests the financial policymakers of firms to modify their credit policies in response to changes in financial depth. For future research, we suggest the investigation of the effect of financial policy interventions on credit redistribution by small and non-listed firms.

This paper investigates the relationship between Cash In Advance (CIA) and firms’ export participation, particularly in the presence of financial constraints. Using the firm-level data covering 56 countries for the period from 2006 to 2010, we detect the positive correlation of the employment of CIA and the export participation of small and medium-sized firms only. This correlation becomes more prominent for severely credit-constrained firms. One possible explanation is that CIA raises the export possibility of small and medium-sized firms by ameliorating credit constraints while it plays no role in large-sized ones.

We study the impact ofQuickpay, a federal reform that indefinitely acceleratedpayments to small business contractors of the U.S. government. We find a strong di-rect effect of the reform on employment growth at the firm-level. Importantly, how-ever, we also document substantial crowding out of non-treated firms’ employmentwithin local labor markets. While the overall net employment effect was positive,it was close to zero in tight labor markets – where crowding out was stronger. Ourresults highlight an important channel for alleviating financing constraints in smallfirms, but also emphasize the general-equilibrium effects of large-scale interventions,which can lead to lower aggregate outcomes depending on labor market conditions.

PurposeExisting studies that documented the effect of financial distress on trade credit provisions did not include measures financial constraint. It is possible that financial distress is tie to financial constraints, and both financial distress and financial constraints mutually reinforce each other in their effects on trade credit provision. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of financial constraint and financial distress on trade credit provisions in the UK FTSE 350 listed firms.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs panel data in the estimation of the determinants of accounts payables and accounts receivables of the UK FTSE 350 firms from 2009 to 2017.FindingsThis study finds that financial distress has significant positive effect on accounts payables and a significant negative effect on accounts receivables. Financial constraints have significant negative effect on accounts payables and a significant positive effect on accounts receivables.Practical implicationsTrade creditor desiring to maintain an enduring product-market relationship grant more concessions to customer in financial distress. The amount of trade credit that sellers provide to financially constrained firm is an increasing function of the buyer's creditworthiness. The urgent cash needs of financially distressed firms lead them to sell trade receivables to factoring company leading to reduction in trade receivables. Firm facing external financing constraints increase trade credit to customers in anticipation of cash flow inflow to enhance liquidity.Originality/valueThis study shows that financial distress and financial constraints mutually reinforce each other in their effects on trade credit provisions, and firm's financing condition contributes to divergence in trade credit policies.

An economic downturn can occurred through unexpected events in various fields, such as the subprime mortgage crisis and the outbreak of Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19). Trade credit is important for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially during a monetary contraction, as it is the last option for firms that lack bank credit. This study aims to determine whether trade credit is profitable for the buyer and supplier firms during and after a financial crisis. We use panel data consisting of all trade credit transactions and financial statements of 5,751 Korean firms during the period 2008–2012. It shows that trade credit is more profitable for both buyers and suppliers in the post-crisis period than during the crisis. Moreover, trade payable is more effective for unconstrained buyers than for constrained buyers. Finally, a mixed strategy is superior to an aggressive or passive strategy of SMEs. The results suggest less profitability of trade credit during a period of contraction and greater sensitivity of the buyer SMEs, emphasizing the idiosyncratic liquidity strategy of each firm. This study can be helpful to develop a strategy of profitable trade credit for SMEs and to establish a policy of managing liquidity for the authority.

We analyse the macroeconomic effects of exogenous contractions in bank lending to non-financial corporations in the Euro Area, Germany, France, Italy and Spain using a Bayesian vector autoregressive model with endogenous hyperparameter selection and identification via sign restrictions. We focus on the behaviour of firms' external financing sources alternative to bank loans, such as financing via equity, debt securities, trade credit and lending from non-banks. We investigate whether these alternative financing sources are complements to or substitutes for bank lending using the joint posterior distribution of their impulse responses with that of bank loans. For the Euro Area our results show equity, debt securities and non-bank loans to be substitutes for bank loans with negative responses to a positive loan supply shock while trade credit is a complement and responds positively. We show that the substitution relationship with respect to bank loans is more clearly visible in the joint distribution of the financing sources reactions than when focusing only on the marginal impulse responses. Quantitatively, the developments in bank loans and trade credit dominate the response of the overall sum of the external financing. This result also holds in most cases at the country level. However, whether and which of the alternative financing sources are substitutes for or complements to bank loans differs across countries.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of the readability of annual reports on firms’ ability to obtain trade credit from suppliers. Particularly, the authors conjecture that annual report readability helps firms obtain more trade credit from suppliers. Design/methodology/approach The authors use the Gunning Fog Index as the primary measure of annual report readability and the ratio of accounts payable to the book value of total assets as the measure of trade credit. Findings Results from the study of 4,754 firms during the 2004–2016 period indicate that suppliers extend more trade credit to firms with more readable financial reports. The authors’ results are robust to alternative measures of trade credit and annual report readability. The authors’ results remain robust when we control for firm fixed effects and potential endogeneity problems using the instrumental variable approach. A further test shows that the level of trade credit is higher for firms in business service industries, and that this relation is weakened when firms disclose less readable 10-K filings. Originality/value The authors’ findings provide new insight into the role of financial report readability in firms’ ability to obtain trade financing from suppliers. The authors’ results are also in line with the SEC’s encouragement that firms use plain English and easy language in financial reporting.

The financial system and capital market in developed countries are more developed as compare to emerging countries. Firms like small and medium enterprise (SMEs) needs finance to operate their business and make a competitive position in the market. In an emerging country like Pakistan, SMEs face a lot of financial and non-financial obstacles that may relate to the poor performance of SMEs. This study investigates the relationship between commercial loans, retain earnings, trade credit, managerial activities, and SME's performance. This study also investigates the interaction effect of managerial activities between independent variables and dependent variables. A survey was conducted in a small and medium enterprise of KPK Pakistan. Data were collected from 362 employees. SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) software was employed for data analysis for descriptive and regression analysis. The finding confirmed that commercial loans, trade credit, retained earning have a positive and significant impact upon SME's performance. It is also found that managerial activities have played a mediating role and increased the performance of SMEs. Among variables under study, the more trade credit activities, the higher the performance of the SMEs is observed. Based on this study's results, Leaders, supervisors, and managers are those employees having a substantial role in the performance, development, failure, and success of an organization. Managerial activities are vital for a manager for the purpose to know what should be done in different circumstances and improve overall performance and accomplish organizational goals.

Research Question: What are the interaction effects and links between the cash conversion cycle components? Motivation: One of the major difficulties in studying the links between the components of the cash conversion cycle is the fact that each of them is a determinant of the others. Idea: We develop a model to define the direction of the relations between cash conversion cycle components taking into consideration the contemporaneous correlation between them. Data: For the purposes of our study we use a balance panel dataset from Greek wholesale sector over the period 2005 - 2014. Tools: Error components three-stage least squares estimation for simultaneous equations of panel data is used. Findings: Our results show that inventory, accounts receivable and accounts payable are mutually endogenous factors and identify the causal relationships. We find that not only accounts payable lead to an increase in accounts receivable, but also accounts receivable leads to an increase in accounts payable. We argue that the causes for the effect of receivables on inventory differ from that of inventory on receivables. Contribution: The results of this study would be useful for wholesalers and supply chain managers to analyze and identify the interactions of inventory and trade credit policies. Moreover, our model can be used for the more accurate forecasting of inventory, accounts receivable and accounts payable.

Do financial crises have an impact on trade flows via a shock to corporate risk or to bank risk? Focusing on Italy’s exports during a period characterized by both the global financial crisis and by the sovereign debt crisis, we exploit the prediction of standard trade models according to which financial shocks should be magnified by the time needed to ship a good to the importer’s country and by sector-level financial vulnerability. We also use bank-pair data on Italian banks’ assets and liabilities vis-a-vis their foreign bank counterparts in a specific country to construct proxies for the availability of trade finance in a given market. We find evidence of a negative impact of financial shocks on exports, especially to more distant countries and in more financially vulnerable sectors. The main channels seem to be related to an increase in corporate risk (reflecting shocks to bank finance and to buyer-supplier trade credit), while the ‘contagion effect’ of shocks stemming from bank risk seems to be much less significant.

A scientific article is devoted to the analysis of the role of insurance in the management of receivables of enterprises of the economy of the Russian Federation. The relevance of scientific research is associated with the ongoing process of increasing the size of receivables from domestic organizations. The theoretical aspects and fundamentals of accounts receivable insurance are considered. The advantages by which insurance is one of the most relevant methods for managing receivables of enterprises are highlighted. The main negative fundamental factors that increase the degree of problems of managing receivables from domestic organizations are listed. The main disadvantage of insurance is described as a method of managing receivables. The features of the policy and general scheme of insurance of receivables of enterprises are considered.

With a two-echelon Stackelberg game, this paper investigates the interfaces of operations and financial decisions in a green supply chain consisting of a manufacturer (leader) and a financially con...

In this paper, we consider the financing issues in a supply chain where the capital-constrained retailer should use limited funds to pay for both order and sales. The retailer decides the retail pr...

We examine how economic policy uncertainty (EPU) impacts on Chinese firm’s trade credit. We find a significant negative relationship between EPU and both firm’s account payable (receiving) and account receivable (offering). These results were more pronounced for non-state-owned enterprises, firms located in high marketisation and high trust regions, and survived after the endogeneity tests.

This study uses a comprehensive panel of tax returns to examine the financial reporting choices of medium‐to‐large private U.S. firms, a setting that controls over $9 trillion in capital, vastly outnumbers public U.S. firms across all industries, yet has no financial reporting mandates. We find that nearly two‐thirds of these firms do not produce audited GAAP financial statements. Guided by an agency theory framework, we find that size, ownership dispersion, external debt, and trade credit are positively associated with the choice to produce audited GAAP financial statements, while asset tangibility, age, and internal debt are generally negatively related to this choice. Our findings reveal that (1) equity capital and trade credit exhibit significant explanatory power, suggesting that the primary focus in the literature on debt is too narrow; (2) firm youth, growth, and RD and (3) many firms violate standard explanations for financial reporting choices and substantial unexplained heterogeneity in financial reporting remains. We conclude by identifying opportunities for future research.

This paper explores the effects of trade credit by assessing its macroeconomic impacts on several dimensions. To that end, we develop an agent-based model (ABM) with two types of firms: downstream firms, which produce a final good for consumption purposes using intermediate goods, and upstream firms, which produce and supply those intermediate goods to the downstream firms. Upstream firms can act as trade credit suppliers, by allowing delayed payment of a share of their sales to downstream firms. Our results suggest a potential trade-off between financial robustness as measured by the proportion of non-performing loans and the average output level. The intuitive reason is that greater availability of trade credit, which however does not necessarily imply proportionately greater actual use of it by downstream firms, allows more financial resources to remain in the real sector, favoring the latter's financial robustness. Yet, given that trade credit is proportionally more beneficial to smaller downstream firms, it enhances market competition. This results in a decrease in markups and thereby in profits and dividends, which contributes negatively to aggregate demand formation.