Andrea Bellucci

Does Gender Matter in Bank-Firm Relationships? Evidence from Small Business Lending

In this paper we study the relevance of the gender of the contracting parties involved in lending. We show that female entrepreneurs face tighter access to credit, even though they do not pay higher interest rates. The effect is independent of the information available about the borrower and holds if we control for unobservable individual effects. The gender of the loan officer is also important: we find that female officers are more risk-averse or less self-confident than male officers as they tend to restrict credit availability to new, unestablished borrowers more than their male counterparts.

Do Male and Female Loan Officers Differ in Small Business Lending? A Review of the Literature

In this chapter we review the academic literature on the role of loan officers in the loan origination process and lending relationships with small businesses. In particular, we focus on a recent stream of research which recognizes that loan officers – with their behavior, character and even emotions – are a key factor affecting the outcome of bank-firm relationships.

Credit availability and propensity to innovate of small and medium enterprises

We aim to analyze the impact of credit availability on firms’ probability to innovate. Using detailed information on more than five thousand five hundred credit lines to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), we find that innovative activities are positively affected by measures of bank loan availability. Further, estimates also show that firms located in an industrial district have higher probability to be innovative than other firms. Our results support the idea that Italian institutions should undertake and reinforce an economic policy oriented to sustain the access to credit of SMEs as a key element for the growth and development of innovative firms.

Bank Organization and Loan Contracting in Small Business Financing

How entrepreneurs develop opportunities for sustainable development represents an important question. Current conceptions based on prior knowledge tend to overlook the nature and magnitude of the sustainability problem that the entrepreneur is trying to solve. Using an experimental design, we demonstrate that the moral intensity (MI) of the sustainability issue in question plays an instrumental role in guiding perceptions and inspiring action. MI moderates the relationship between prior knowledge and opportunity intention; participants with prior knowledge intend to pursue an opportunity only to the extent that they faced high level of MI. This finding offers important insights for further theoretical development and empirical research.In this study, we investigate the impact of entrepreneurial pitches and interactions between entrepreneurs and business angels (BAs) on investment outcomes. Instead of an experimental- or survey-based research sample, we use actual pitches to observe the delivery (preparedness, and passion) and content of the pitch and interaction (information on the product/service, market, and entrepreneur). We found that while preparedness has a significant positive influence on angel investing, passion does not. Furthermore, our empirical results show that the degree to which the pitch and interaction convey favorable information about the entrepreneur is positively related to angel investment decisions. Positive content about product characteristics and market attractiveness do not have a significant effect.Water is a critical resource for human organization. In many places of the world there are already severe water challenges set to worsen due to issues such as climate change and increasing urbanization. Despite its importance, the management literature on sustainability has only occasionally focused on the topic of water resources. Furthermore, what is critically missing is an explicit understanding of how local places shape water management practices, and vice versa. To address this gap, our chapter adopts a place-based approach to examine the dynamics of sustainable water management. More specifically, we provide in-depth qualitative insights through a case study of the implementation of a Sustainable Urban Drainage System (SUDS) in a socially-deprived inner area of a mid-sized city in England. Based on case findings we integrate the concept of a place-based enterprise (PBE) (Shrivastava & Kennelly, 2013) into Guthey et al. (2014) framework on understanding the determinants of local “place.” In particular, we identify place-based champions as a critical organizational role within PBEs, and the management of sustainable water resources. We end with a call for future research using a place-based lens in order to better understand how local dynamics shape the emergence of sustainable enterprises and studies that identify how local champions help organizations internalize a place-based perspective.Interest in promoting entrepreneurship has become a worldwide phenomenon. Yet, empirical evidence suggests that countries vary significantly in their ability to incubate and create new firms. Sources of these differences across countries are not well understood. In this paper, we examine the cross-country heterogeneity of new venture formation rates by testing two core propositions derived from the Schumpeterian and institutional economic views of entrepreneurship. The Schumpeterian view posits that nations that offer greater technological opportunities for entrepreneurs to exploit are likely to have higher rates of new venture formation. Following the institutional economics perspective, nations with facilitating formal institutions can provide a better incentive structure for entrepreneurs to create new businesses. Our empirical analysis of new venture formation rates for 84 nations during 1996-2005 shows that technological opportunities and formal institutional development contribute substantially to the heterogeneity of new venture formation rates across nations, supporting both theoretical perspectives.

Imprese innovative ed accesso al credito. Un’indagine empirica

Questo lavoro mira ad analizzare l’accesso al credito delle imprese innovative testando l’impatto della natura innovativa delle imprese: (a) sul costo del credito bancario; (b) sulla probabilita di restrizione del credito. L’analisi empirica utilizza le informazioni ottenute dall’unificazione di due database distinti e di diversa derivazione. Il primo database contiene informazioni di natura finanziaria su oltre 15.000 linee di credito concesse da un’istituzione bancaria ad imprese di diversa tipologia dimensionale e giuridica operanti in 23 settori industriali. Il secondo database identifica le imprese che svolgono attivita innovativa. Le stime econometriche mostrano che le imprese innovative hanno una minor probabilita di restrizione del credito rispetto a quelle tradizionali. L’innovazione si potrebbe dunque configurare una via per il superamento del credit crunch. Classificazione

Gli effetti della distanza su alcune componenti della relazione creditizia. Evidenze empiriche

Nel presente lavoro viene affrontata la tematica della localizzazione delle imprese e delle distanze geografiche che intercorrono con il loro sportello bancario di riferimento con lo scopo di verificarne gli effetti sulle condizioni contrattuali all’interno dei mercati locali del credito. In particolare, si cerca di individuare il soggetto che sostiene i costi generati dalle inefficienze dovute alla distanza (sportello od impresa) e la natura dei costi: trasporto o di informazione. I risultati evidenziano l’importanza del ruolo esercitato dalle distanze sui diversi elementi della decisione creditizia rilevando come un incremento della distanza bancaimpresa generi un aumento dei costi per quest’ultima, mentre la natura dei costi sembrerebbe ricadere su quelli d’informazione.