We investigate whether and how credit quality influences SMEs' substitution of bank credit for trade credit. Using data from the five largest European countries, we find that substitution of bank credit for trade credit decreases during the financial crisis, but it decreases significantly less...

The existence of multiple credit rating agencies (CRAs) and firms' demand for multiple ratings suggests that there must be instances in which CRAs disagree. We investigate whether market-wide and firm-specific measures of uncertainty, private information, systematic risk and credit risk affect...