Liquidity gaps in financing the SME sector in an emerging market: evidence from Poland

Purpose – Access to finance appears to be the largest challenge for entrepreneurial firms from the small to medium‐sized enterprise (SME) sector in Poland. To address this concern, the government embarked on a program to yield financial and know‐how assistance to the SME sector. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate public intervention in this area. Design/methodology/approach – The study focuses on the analysis of primary data. The sampling frame for the study consisted of 278,088 firms from the SME sector in the Warsaw region. The sample size was equal to 500 firms from the SME sector. Questionnaires from 262 respondents were included in the study, for an effective response rate of 52 percent. Findings – The study concludes that there are still pronounced liquidity gaps for firms in the SME sector in Poland and that the government programs are not effective in closing these liquidity gaps. Originality/value – Problems with access to capital continue to be a challenge to developing a vibrant SME sector in Poland and a lack of access to capital is consistently quoted as the major obstacle to the development of the SME sector in Poland. The paper offers three policy recommendations in relation to closing liquidity gaps in the SME sector.