We assess the impact of credit constraints on investment, inventories and other working capital and firm growth with a large panel of small and medium-sized enterprises from 12 European countries for the period 2014-2016. The data come from the Survey on the access to finance of enterprises...

As the euro area has a predominantly bank-based financial system, changes in the composition and strength of banks’ balance sheets can have very sizeable implications for the transmission of monetary policy. This paper provides an overview of developments in banks’ balance sheets,...