SMEs’ growth under financing constraints and banking markets integration in the euro area

We explore the impact of financing constraints and the role of banking markets integration on SMEs’ growth. The data are drawn from the ECB/SAFE survey on SMEs’ access to finance aggregated at country level for the largest 11 euro-area countries over 2009-2015. Our findings suggest that financing constraints hamper SMEs’ growth and that the effect is stronger for perceived, rather than actual, financing constraints. On the other hand, increased banking market integration in the euro area appears to foster SMEs’ growth. Furthermore, we find that the reduction in financing constraints is crucial in the transmission channel from banking markets integration to growth. This effect appears significantly stronger when integration is measured by the intensity of cross-border lending than through convergence in interest rates to loans to non-financial corporations.