SFSME

The post-Great Recession (2007-2009) economy has exhibited a slow rate of recovery. This is especially evident when examining unemployment. One suggested underlying cause of this trend is the significant decline in new firms, or new entrants, during 2008-2009. In Canada, while there has been a slow decrease in unemployment, the employment rate has remained steady. Thus, it appears the ability to create jobs has not yet recovered since the Great Recession. This raises the question of what factors determine a firm’s status as a job creator. The firm entry rate in Canada is decreasing, while the job creation rate of firms who do enter the market is 1.5 to 2.5%. This is greater than the aggregate annual job growth in Canada. This trend shows firms that have an established position in the market are not net job creators, and new firms may be job creators.  This study hopes to answer the following questions: (1) what factors affect the initial performance of new firms and (2) what determines the fact that some firms are high growth (job creators), while others rapidly shrink. The study will also focus on how constraints after a financial shock (i.e., the Great Recession) affect the entry decision of new firms. 

Asymmetric information, when one party in a transaction possesses more information than the other, is common in creditor-borrower relations. When proper and complete information is not available, creditors may not be able to assess the ability of a firm to repay debt. Thus, this problem of asymmetric information may cause creditors to ration loans, or not price debt efficiently (i.e. the price that truly reflects the position of the firm). This may limit access of funds to productive firms, especially Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), that are known to employ the majority of an economy’s workforce. Some mechanisms exist that may mitigate the problems associated with information asymmetry. For example, bank-firm relationships may complement available financial information. Through long-term relationships, banks may obtain “soft information” such as the quality of management, revenue volatility, customer loyalty, etc. The purpose of this paper is to determine if such bank-firm relationships improve debt pricing of SMEs and other frictions associated with asymmetric information.