Construire l'Euro-Méditerranée
« Comprendre les économies d'outre mer », sous la direction de N. Levratto, chapitre 9 avec N. Levratto et L Tessier «Analyse de la performance économique des entreprises domiennes et métropolitaines », L'Harmattan 2007.
« L'action publique et ses dispositifs » sous la direction de Elisabeth Chatel, Thierry Kirat et Robert Salais, chapitre 2 avec Nadine Levratto : « La puissance publique promoteur de nouveaux critères de décision de financement des entreprises », L'Harmattan 2005.
Présentation de l'ouvrage dans la revue Humanisme et Entreprise - numéro 249 octobre 2001 ( article1001.pdf).
The present study is the outcome of a joint research project by staff members of the Banque de France and the Deutsche Bundesbank. The study is based on preliminary work by the European Committee of Central Balance Sheet Data Offices, which was set up in 1985 to improve the analysis of corporate accounts data through the exchange of information, the comparison of analytical methods, and the carrying-out of joint studies. As part of the work of the European Committee of Central Balance Sheet Offices, Germany, Austria, Spain, France, Italy and the DG II set up a working group in 1994 with the task of comparing the financial situation of European enterprises. In 1997 the working group presented an initial study entitled Net Equity and Corporate Financing in Europe, (Delbreil et al., 1997, available on SSRN) which was especially devoted to intermediate economies in which the capital markets play a much smaller role than in Anglo-Saxon countries. The empirical basis of the present study was provided by individual data from the raw material of the national corporate balance sheet statistics. Considerable efforts were made to ensure the comparability of the data and, in particular, to neutralize the differences in accounting practice as far as possible. The time period under review in the study is concentrated on the period 1987 to 1995 and 1996, respectively (only the Banque de France provides figures for 1996), in order to completely cover the last business cycle, which occurred relatively synchronously in both countries. Corporate finance is analysed from the point of view of organizational theory and the theory of conventions, an approach which is not very well known in Germany but quite popular in France, and which puts special emphasis on the institutional determinants of corporate finance. The differences in the systems of corporate finance in France and Germany can be traced to a large extent to the institutional context in the two countries. This defines particular rules and conditions under which enterprises decide on their strategy to solve the capital structure puzzle and which tend to differ greatly and systematically in the two countries. A very prominent factor is to be seen, for example, in the relationship between banks and companies. The results of the descriptive approach clearly show that the capital structures of firms largely diverge, as the different sources of corporate finance tend to play very distinct roles in the industrial sectors of the two countries, thus indicating that the respective systems of corporate finance seem to differ distinctly and systematically. Underlying the full samples, panel econometric analysis shows that French and German firms exhibit in some way a surprisingly parallel behaviour. In the baseline model assuming exogeneity of the right-hand-side variables long-term growth and collateral are positively correlated to debt supporting the theory of signalling. The negative relationship of profit and leverage stands for the pecking order approach and finally the impact of the cost of finance on enterprisess credit demand is negative, too. Nevertheless clear differences in borrowing behaviour can be found with respect to the determinants size and time. Time proxying macroeconomic factors are very important for France, but not for Germany. On the other hand the variable size plays a major role for total creditors in Germany only, where small firms depend much more on external funds than large enterprises. Such a divergent lending outcome between French and German firms may be based on the country-specific institutional settings. However, dependency of some results on the econometric specification and the variables definition underlines the difficulty to present final answers. Additionally, it can be shown that the borrowing behaviour of firms of different size classes is not equivalent. This result, which holds for both France and Germany, strengthens the fact that a representative firm and a unique debt equation does not exist.
L'analyse des modes de financement des entreprises allemandes et françaises a été menée dans le cadre d'un projet d'étude commun auquel ont participé des économistes de la Banque de France et de la Banque fédérale d'Allemagne. Cette étude comporte une analyse descriptive des structures de financement au passif et des composantes de l'actif ainsi qu'une modélisation économétrique sur données de panel du comportement d'endettement des sociétés de capitaux de l'industrie manufacturière en France et en Allemagne. Il ressort de l'analyse descriptive que le financement des entreprises dans les deux pays est marqué par des différences structurelles très importantes. Elles sont liées au contexte législatif et juridique spécifique à chaque pays ainsi qu'au rôle particulier joué par les banques dans le financement des petites et moyennes entreprises. Il apparaît également que la composition des actifs diffère d'un pays à l'autre. Menée sur la période 1990-1995, l'étude économétrique sur les deux échantillons cylindrés cherche à estimer les déterminants microéconomiques du comportement d'endettement des entreprises françaises et allemandes. Elle suggère que, malgré les différences importantes entre les deux pays concernant l'évolution de la dette au cours de la période, et par classe de taille, les coefficients estimés sont de même signe et très proches à court terme. La croissance exerce un effet positif sur le niveau d'endettement, comme le suggère la théorie du signal, alors que la corrélation négative entre le profit et la dette est conforme à la théorie de la hiérarchie des financements. Le coût de financement a aussi un impact négatif sur la dette, et dans les deux pays, l'effet est plus fort pour les grandes entreprises. Les résultats de ces recherches fournissent des éléments pour l'analyse des mécanismes de transmission monétaire au sein de l'Union monétaire européenne.
en collaboration avec Bernard BELLETANTE
43rd ANNUAL ICSB WORLD CONFERENCE JUNE 1998 - SINGAPORE.
Down load from SSRN December 26,1998 or version française à partir du bulletin mensuel de mai 1998 de la Banque de France
It is possible to study companies according to their methods of gaining access to finance, and in particular the stock market. Two approaches are possible. The first looks at the organisation of such access through the relationships built up by the company with suppliers of capital, enabling the financial territory of the company to be defined. The second approach, which does not exclude the first, is to compare companies according the degree to which they enjoy access to financial markets, which can be defined in terms of whether a company is listed on the stock market or not. Both approaches have been tested using data for recent years. The purpose of this paper is to examine firstly the differences in access to financial markets between large and small companies, and secondly the effects and constraints generated by the fact of being listed (comparison of listed and unlisted companies).
Since the slowdown in the economy that began in 1990, research has shown that firm's sensitivity to changes in the economic climate varies according to their size. This is the main conclusion that can be drawn from the studies of the productive sector published annually by the Banque de France, and from the study by Augory, Avouy-Dovi, Busque and Quéron (1996) of trends in the macroeconomic situation of small and medium-sized industrial firms between 1985 and 1992. Two sets of arguments may be advanced to explain the particular sensitivity of small and medium-sized industrial firms. The first is based on real determinants: firms of this type are more sensitive to cyclical shifts because their productive structures have less inertia and are therefore more flexible. The second is based on financial determinants, within which two particular approaches can be identified. - Researchers seeking to identify the existence of a credit channel emphasise the special position of small and medium-sized enterprises (Gertler, Gilchrist, 1993, 1994; Hubbard, 1995). According to this view, SMEs bear the brunt of real or monetary shocks affecting the economy because capital markets operate imperfectly. This research reveals the emergence of a flight to quality, reflected by a reduction in the amount of bank lending to SMEs (Oliner, Rudebusch, 1995). However, researchers have not managed to identify whether this effect is due to changes in the behaviour of lenders or of borrowers. - Researchers focusing specifically on SMEs point to the existence of a small business capital gap, generally identified by two features (Garvin, 1971). First, the cost of access to capital is higher for small businesses. Bardos (1991) has found this to be the case for small French firms on the credit market. Second, small businesses are reputed to suffer from a chronic shortage of long-term capital, whether in the form of share issues or bank loans. The corollary to this is high levels of short-term debt, which may explain why small businesses are more sensitive to economic shocks. Tamari (1980) shows that this is a permanent feature of the economic landscape of all the industrialised countries. Research carried out by the Banque de France has underlined the importance of short-term debt for small businesses (Beau, 1991; Boissonade, Tournier, 1996). An analysis of firm's capital structure according to size over the period 1990-1993 revealed significant differences in financial behaviour, especially once the payroll rose above 2,000 (Cieply, Paranque, 1996). Firms with less than 2,000 employees carried more debt. Among these firms, which are highly sensitive to the cost of borrowing, cash flow was a more important factor in obtaining loans. Likewise, as debt is the sole source of capital, small firms (unlike large firms) are not able to compensate for an increase in the working capital requirement or a fall in turnover by borrowing more. Moreover, as their accumulation rate tends to be higher than that of large firms, their financing requirements are correspondingly greater (Paranque, 1994, 1996). These features have led some economists and politicians to argue that the financial system is biased against small businesses and to justify the existence of financial institutions that specialise in lending to them . To the best of our knowledge, however, no research has yet shown that supply effects predominate over demand effects in determining the financial characteristics of firms in general and small businesses in particular. It is this question that we seek to address in this study, based on accounting and tax data collected by the Banque de France's Balance Sheet Data Centre . An earlier study (Cieply, Paranque, 1996) revealed the existence of a size effect in the determination of the financial structures of French firms over the period 1990-1993. However, this effect only appeared clearly above the 2000 employee threshold and was not sufficient to identify the dominant factors explaining the financial structures observed. We therefore turned to a model that included the determinants of the demand for and supply of financial debt. The main findings of this research are: the importance of credit rationing by demand over the period as a whole and across the population of firms; the absence of any effect of substitution of debt to suppliers for debt to financial institutions, perhaps due to a lack of information about the customers of firms subject to credit rationing by supply; the high frequency of firms with financial links subject to credit rationing by supply, which doubtless corresponds to specific methods for managing cash balances and the production cycle; the fact that listed firms are more often in equilibrium than other firms. The hypothesis of a small business capital gap is borne out only for the smallest businesses, especially as regards long-term debt. However, this finding is not entirely clear-cut. We have sought here to construct notional supply of and demand for credit. We have no information about either lenders offer of credit to firms, or about firms real demand for credit. It may be that the real values are in fact different from the notional values. Firms may ration themselves in view of their own expectations of growth on their markets and their perception of the financial and monetary environment. They may already have screened their investment projects and defined a strategy likely to allow them to assume the solvency constraint and meet the standards of financial independence. Lastly, the prevalence of each configuration seems to depend more on the movement of interest rates than on their spread.
with Michel Delbreil, Banque de France; Franco Varetto, Central dei Bilanci; Franz Partsch, Banque Centrale d'Autriche; Hans Friderich, Deutsch Bundesbank; José Ramon Cano, Banque Centrale Espagnole et Benoît Gress, DG2.
SSRN Journal : August 10, 1998
Pour un résumé en français numéro de mai 1997
Throughout the Member States of the European Union, economic policy debate has centred on the terms of corporate financing, and in particular on whether the companies of each country have sufficient equity to compete in a single market. Moreover, faced with the risk of corporate insolvency, credit institutions consider a certain equity level to be one of several indicators of creditworthiness. Given this situation and within the framework of the work of the European Committee of Central Balance Sheet Offices, Germany, Austria, Spain, France and Italy and the second General Directorate of the European Commission invited a working group , to compare the f-inancial autonomy of European industriel companies. This study covered the period 1991 to 1993 and examined several issues. Do corporate equity levels vary according to the countr ? Do these levels vary according to company size, regardless of the country? Do small companies have a specific position in each country? This study is based on an évaluation of corporate solvency, given that equity is used by companies and thieir financial partners to control risk exposure. After a brief reminder of the role of equity, the study sums up the research conducted since the publication in 1958 of the paper by Modigliani and Miller and gives a critical analysis of the empirical findings of intenational comparisons. All such research must begin by identifying and solving the financial and statistical methodological problems inherent to comparisons of the financing conditions of different countries. The work conducted gives rise to clear conclusions. - Corporate equity levels vary from country to country. These différences are at least partially related to variations in taxation, bankruptcy regulations, the organization of the banking system, the relationship between banks and companies and the financing practices of each country. - An overall analysis is insufficient and must be complemented by an analysis by company size. - The situation of the companies in each country can not be evaluated without taking into account financial requirements. - In France, regardless of the size of the company, the share of equity in overall financial resources appears larger than in other countries. Moreover, the difference between the equity of small and medium-sized companies and that of large corporations is narrower than in Germany or Austria. It should also be noted that this company classification is relatively recent in France. In the early 1980s, small and medium-sized companies enjoyed a stronger financial position than large corporations. Subsequently, ebbing inflation. rising profits and expanding capital markets enabled large corporations to improve their financial structures significantly. At the beginning of the 1990s, all companies were affected by the economic downturn, with the notable exception of large French corporations, which continued to strengthen their financial structures. The low debt-to-net turnover ratio in France is due to high equity levels, as well as low borrowing requirements related to high asset tumover rates, which may be attributable to lower operating capital requirements and perhaps relatively weak fixed asset formation during the period under review.
Entre 1991 et 1993 la France a connu une forte récession. Celle-ci a été plus longue et plus marquée que celles apparues ces quinze dernières années. Elle a entraîné un accroissement des défaillances (+ 3 % en 1992, + 3,4 % en 1993). Toutefois, depuis les premiers mois de 1994 une reprise de l' activité s'est manifesté . Sa vigueur et son ampleur sont liées, pour une large part, à la capacité des entreprises à exploiter leur compétitivité, ce qui dépend de leurs décisions actuelles, particulièrement en matière d' investissement tant matériel qu'immatériel. Dans une étude datant de 1993 " Les P.M.E. : technologie et compétitivité" l' O.C.D.E. précise que " l' analyse micro-économique met en relation les éléments de compétitivité d'une entreprise avec l'ensemble de ses fonctions et des décisions qui touchent à son activité, sa croissance (que traduisent son chiffre d'affaires, sa valeur ajoutée, son excédent brut d'exploitation, ses effectifs, etc.), sa rentabilité, son financement, son équilibre financier, sa gestion " (extraits de Problèmes économiques, janvier 1994, page 25). Les auteurs précisent alors qu' " à l'évidence, il n'existe pas, à l'heure actuelle, de modèle théorique mettant en relation ces variables et pouvant fournir une explication de la compétitivité des P.M.E. ". Autrement dit, dans cette acception, c'est la cohérence des fonctions de l'entreprise qui détermine ses performances . Cette article se propose d'identifier des comportements économiques spécifiques et de les mettre en rapport avec les décisions d'investissement, en particulier immatériel, opérés par les entreprises. Il est tout d'abord nécessaire de définir la compétitivité et de proposer un indicateur de mesure adapté aux données comptables agrégées. Ensuite le lien entre compétitivité et rentabilité est explicité avant d' insister sur la diversité des entreprises.
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