R&D and Credit Rationing in SMEs

We study the effects of credit rationing on Research and Development (R&D) investment using survey and accounting data on a large representative sample of manufacturing small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). Our econometric model accounts for the endogeneity of our credit rationing indicator and employs an innovative theory based identification strategy. We find that credit rationing has a significantly negative effect on both the probability to set up R&D activities and on the level of R&D spending (conditioned on the R&D decision), but the overall estimated reduction in R&D spending is largely to be associated with the first effect.