TRADE VERSUS BANK CREDIT

Abstract

This study analyzes the relationship between trade and bank credit, considering them as jointly determined variables. The relative sizes of bank and trade credit to sales are modeled in a two-equation system, allowing them to appear as explanatory variables in each other’s equations. Utilizing the administrative panel data consisting of large firms in Kazakhstan, I carry out my estimations employing the 2SLS method treating exclusion restrictions as instruments. Short-term financial investments are used as the exclusion restriction for the trade credit equation, whereas the size of intangible assets and cash-on-hand are utilized as exclusion restrictions for the bank loans equation. The results suggest a complementary relationship between trade and bank credit. Additional analysis during the 2014-15 economic crisis period points out to a decrease in the effect of the size of the labor cost on trade credit on the onset till the middle of the 2014-15 economic crisis. I also find that the effect of the size of fixed assets on bank loans weakened in 2015-16.