LE SCELTE DI FINANZIAMENTO DELLE IMPRESE MINORI: TEORIE E ANALISI DEL CASO ITALIANO

Standard theories of corporate financial structure and of firm’s size (reviewed in the first part of this paper) offer only a general framework for understanding the working of small firms. As a consequence, theoretical models should take into account empirical findings to explain SME’s financial choices in different institutional contexts. Unfortunately, data on Italian small firms (which represent 2/3 of all Italian businesses) are neither easily available (mainly due to the informational opacity of these firms) nor suitable to a thorough investigation of the bank-firm relationship. In an attempt to overcome this lack of information, we used different data sources: from Eurostat and Anagrafe Tributaria (paragraph 2) we obtained information on the relevance of the small business sector in Italy (compared with other EU countries) and of the lack of disclosure of reliable information which characterizes this sector; from Centrale dei Bilanci (paragraph 3.1) we analyzed (using balance sheets’ figures from 1982 to 2000 of a sample of companies) the evolution of the capital structure in the small “corporate” sector; from Istat (paragraph 3.2) we got data for unincorporated firms. As it was not possible to gain information about bank-firm relationships and credit-rationing from balance sheets’ figures, Isae-ANBP conducted a specific survey on a sample of 4000 firms.