Using a panel of five Asian economies – Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand – over the period 1995–2007 we analyze the links between firm survival and financial development. We find that traditionally used measures of financial development play an important role in influencing firm survival. When stock markets become larger or more liquid firms’ survival chances improve. On the contrary, we show that higher levels of financial intermediation can increase firm failures. We also find that the beneficial effects of stock market development are more pronounced during the later years of our sample, while the adverse effects of bank intermediation have declined over time. Finally, large firms are more likely to benefit from developments in financial markets compared to small firms.

Prior empirical investigations of corporate failures consider the effects of macroeconomic conditions and financial health, but the literature contains limited evidence of the real effects of the bank shocks caused by the sovereign debt crisis. Using a rich source of high-quality firm-bank matched data for 2005–2014, this study examines the real effects of bank shocks on firms’ survival prospects in Portugal. We first present evidence that a funding outflow is associated with a reduction in the credit supply. Furthermore, firms borrowing from banks exposed to the funding outflow are more likely to fail. We also uncover significant heterogeneity in firms’ financial positions and show that the negative effect of a funding shock is stronger for younger, higher-risk firms, and those that used their potential lines of bank credit.

Empirical investigation of the external finance premium has been conducted on the margin between internal finance and bank borrowing or equities but little attention has been given to corporate bonds, especially for the emerging Asian market. In this paper, we hypothesize that balance sheet indicators of creditworthiness could affect the external finance premium for bonds as they do for premia in other markets. Using bond-specific and firm-specific data for China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand during 1995–2009 we find that firms with better financial health face lower external finance premia in all countries. When we introduce firm-level heterogeneity, we show that financial variables appear to be both statistically and quantitatively more important for financially constrained firms. Finally, when we examine the effects of the 1997–1998 Asian crisis and the 2007–2009 global financial crisis, we find that the sensitivity of the premium is greater for constrained firms during the Asian crisis compared to other times.

We construct a simple model with lumpy investment, cash accumulation, and costly external finance. Based on this model, we propose a new savings specification aimed at examining savings behavior in the presence of investment lumpiness and financial constraints. We then test a key prediction of our model, namely that under costly external finance, savings–cash flow sensitivities vary significantly by investment regime. We make use of a panel of firms from transition and developed economies to estimate the new savings regression which controls for investment spikes and periods of inactivity. Our findings confirm the validity of the model’s prediction.

We examine the relationship between female board representation and the cost of lending, using a dataset of 13,714 loans from 386 banks matched with 2432 non-financial firms from 1999 to 2013. We find that firms with female directors command lower loan spreads. In addition, female independent directors have a stronger impact on lowering spreads compared to female directors' other attributes. However, as firms build relationships with their lenders this effect becomes less potent. Finally, when we introduce firm-level heterogeneity we document that changes in gender diversity exert a stronger impact on the cost of lending in the case of bank-dependent firms, especially for relationship borrowers.

The literature shows that rigid capital control policies adversely influence international trade, leading to external financial reforms in terms of greater cross-border access to financing, which, in turn, can stimulate aggregate productivity. However, the literature overlooks the relationships among access to external financing, firm-level productivity, and exporting performance. We fill this research gap by using a rich dataset of 11,612 Indian firms over the period 1988–2014 and study how a unique financial policy intervention affects firm performance. We establish a significant effect of capital-account liberalization through an export-oriented policy initiative on firms' productivity and, consequently, on their exporting activity. Finally, we find that the benefits of the policy reform are more pronounced for financially vulnerable firms characterized by either high debt or low liquidity.

This paper analyses the impact of policy initiatives co-ordinated by Asian national governments on firms' composition of external finance. Using a unique firm-level database of eight Asian countries- Hong Kong SAR, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand over the period of 1996–2012 and a difference-in-differences approach, the results show a significant response of the debt composition to the policy change. We find that firms increased their uptake of long-term debt, while decreased their short-term debt. We also document that less risky and more profitable firms are more significantly affected by the policy change than riskier and less profitable firms. Finally, we show that the improved access to external finance after the policy initiative helped firms to raise their investment spending.