[雙語翻譯]應收賬款外文翻譯--對應收賬款的動態(tài)分析：以西班牙中小企業(yè)為例（節(jié)選）

1、中文 中文 6800 字， 字，4000 英文單詞， 英文單詞，21500 英文字符 英文字符文獻出處： 文獻出處：García-Teruel P J, Martínez-Solano P. A Dynamic Approach to Accounts Receivable: a Study of Spanish SME s[J]. European Financial Management, 2010, 16(3)

2、:400–421.A Dynamic Approach to Accounts Receivable: a Study of Spanish SMEsPedro J. Garc´?a-Teruel, Pedro Mart´?nez-SolanoAbstractThe main objective of this paper is to extend the literature on the granting of

3、trade credit. The focus is to test whether the accounts receivable decisions follow a model of partial adjustment. To do that, we use a sample of 2,922 Spanish SMEs. Using a dynamic panel data model and employing the GMM

4、 method of estimation we control for unobservable heterogeneity and for potential endogeneity problems. The results reveal that firms have a target level of accounts receivable and take decisions in order to achieve that

5、 level. In addition, we find that sales growth (if positive), the size of the firms, their capacity to generate internal funds and get short term financing, and economic growth are important in determining trade credit g

6、ranted by firms.Keywords: accounts receivable, trade credit, SMEs, partial adjustment model, endogeneity1. IntroductionTrade credit is provided when there is a delay between the delivery of goods or the provision of serv

7、ices by a supplier and payment for them. For the seller, it represents an investment in accounts receivable. That investment represents an important proportion of a firms’ asset. Specifically, the average level of accoun

8、ts receivable over assets for the Spanish firms considered in this study was 38.63%.The literature offers various theories explaining the use of trade credit based on the advantages for suppliers and for customers from

9、 the operational, commercial and financial perspective: reduction in transaction costs (Ferris, 1981; Emery, 1987); reduction in information asymmetry between buyer and seller (Smith, 1987; Long et al., 1993); a mechan

10、ism of price discrimination (Brennan et al., 1988; Petersen and Rajan, 1997); and greater access to funds for firms that have difficulty accessing bank financing, as a result of the commercial creditor’s comparative adva

11、ntages in the evaluation and control of the credit risk (Schwartz, 1974; Emery, 1984; Mian and Smith, 1992). Moreover, it should also be borne in mind that the use of trade credit can help firms to obtain bank financing,

12、 since it transmits information about the borrower’s creditworthiness to the credit institution (Biais and Gollier, 1997). In this sense, trade credit may be used by less creditworthy and constrained firms to acquire rep

13、utation and alleviate adverse selection (Antov and Atanasova, 2007) and mitigates moral hazard problems (Burkart and Ellingsen, 2004). Consequently, trade credit is particularly important for small and medium-sized enter

14、prises (SMEs), whose access to capital markets is very limited (Petersen and Rajan, 1997) and who have more difficulties in funding themselves using credit institutions.Trade credit has an effect on the level of investme

15、nt in assets and consequently may have an important impact on the profitability and liquidity of the firm. Granting trade credit improves sales for the firm, and consequently may result in higher profitability, but over-

16、investing in accounts receivable can be costly due to the increase of investment in current assets and because it may signal acceptance of late-paying customers. If the cash discount and the credit period granted by the

17、firm are not competitive compared to firms in the same industry, this can have negative effects on the value of the firm. Emery (1984) established that there is an optimal level of accounts 19 days (7,4 days), while for

18、Spain it is 67,40 days (15,2 days), and for Italy 73 days (23,9 days). Consequently, the longer payment periods in Mediterranean countries are mainly due to the fact that initial terms of payment are much longer than in

19、Scandinavian countries.Those differences in credit periods between Mediterranean countries and European Northern countries can be explained by following Marotta (2005) in two ways. First, the trade credit cost depends on

20、 discounts for quick payment and penalties for delays. While the proportion of suppliers offering discounts in a Southern country such as Italy is really low (Marotta, 2005), Germany, a Northern country, usually grants a

21、 2% discount for payment within 15 days (Harhoff and Ko¨rting, 1998). In addition, the majority of companies do not apply penalties for late payment (Wilner, 2000 for the USA, Pike and Cheng, 2001 for the UK, Marott

22、a, 2005, for Italy). Second, trade credit use compared with its substitute, short term bank debt, depend on the efficiency of a country’s legal system in enforcing contracts, to the extent that this benefits financial in

23、termediaries. More specifically, as pointed out by Burkart and Ellingsen (2004) trade credit should be more important than bank credit when creditor protection is weaker, because cash is easily diverted while inputs are

24、more difficult to divert, and inputs illiquidity facilitates trade credit. This may explain the finding of Demirgu¨c-Kunt and Maksimovic (2002) that trade credit is relatively more prevalent in countries with weaker

25、 legal protection. This is the case of French Civil Law countries, like, in Europe, Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain (La Porta et al., 1998).In this context, Spain has a banking oriente

26、d financial system with an important role played by banks. There has been no real disintermediation process, as has happened in other European countries, because the development of capital markets, and in particular inst

27、itutional funds, has been led by banks (Gallego et al., 2002). This, together with the fact that in Spain the average size of an SME is smaller than in the wealthier northern European countries (Mulhern, 1995), suggests

28、that Spanish SMEs have fewer alternative sources of external finance available, which makes them more dependent on short-term finance in general, and on trade credit in particular. As Demirguc-Kunt and Maksimovic (2002)

29、suggest, firms operating in countries with more developed banking systems grant more trade credit to their customers, and at the same time receive more finance from their own suppliers. In fact, Spanish firms have one of

30、 the longest effective credit periods in Europe (Marotta, 2001).The importance of banks in the Spanish financial system, together with the high proportion of SMEs in the Spanish economy, makes trade credit especially imp

31、ortant for Spanish firms, and provides an excellent context to study trade credit dynamic models. Specifically, the high levels of investment in accounts receivable in Spanish SMEs make it particularly important for them

32、 to establish target levels for accounts receivable, and hence avoid the negative effects on profitability and liquidity because of lost or uncollectible sales. Moreover, our results may be interesting for other Southern

33、 European countries because of the similarities with the Spanish market with regard to the legal environment, relevance of the SME sector and the high levels of trade credit granted by firms.In addition, from a methodolo

34、gical perspective, the current work improves on previous work by using dynamic panel data. This offers various advantages. On the one hand, it allows us to control for the existence of unobservable heterogeneity, as ther

35、e is more than one cross-section. On the other hand, we can examine a partial adjustment model that allows us to confirm whether SMEs possess an optimal trade credit level. Finally, the estimation carried out using the G