Finance, informal competition, and expectations: A firm-level analysis
利用企业面板数据，发现受非正规企业竞争冲击越大的正规企业，申请银行贷款的可能性越低，原因在于这些企业对未来销售增长的预期更悲观。
This paper documents the link between finance and informal competition. Using longitudinal firm-level data, we show that formal firms that are more exposed to the competition of informal firms are less likely to apply for a bank loan. This result is not due to sample selection, omitted variable bias, or reverse causality, and it is robust to different econometric specifications, including the use of an IV strategy. As for the mechanism explaining our result, we show that firms more exposed to informal competition have worse expectations on future sales growth, which in turn are associated with a lower probability of loan application. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence excluding supply-side mechanisms that may explain heterogeneities in firms’ access to finance.