On the Determinants and Dynamics of Trade Credit Use: Empirical Evidence from Business Start‐ups
利用初创企业数据检验商业信用使用的理论，发现财务约束大、供应商有融资优势、企业家重视控制权私利及交易成本高时，初创企业更多使用商业信用，且这些效应随企业成长而变化。
Abstract: Business start‐ups provide an excellent opportunity for testing various hypotheses on why firms use trade credit. At the time of start‐up, failure risk and financial constraints are typically large. Also, start‐ups have no established relationships with banks and suppliers. The literature has related all these features to trade credit use. Moreover, as firms grow older, these characteristics become less pronounced, allowing us to test the dynamics of trade credit use. We find that start‐ups use more trade credit when financial constraints are large, when suppliers have a financing advantage over banks in financing high‐risk firms, when entrepreneurs value private benefits of control and when transaction costs are important. Furthermore, the dynamic implications of these theories are supported.