Análisis de la financiación de la actividad emprendedora

Resumen

The doctoral thesis “Analysis of the funding of business activity” analyses the efficiency of the various kinds of public financial support available in Spain for newly-created businesses as well as it examines the profile of entrepreneurs and the assessment of this support provided by entrepreneurs receiving it. The main objective of this doctoral thesis is studying the problems surrounding funding for entrepreneurs and new businesses, and the solutions provided by public institutions. One of the first decisions that any entrepreneur has to make is how to procure funding. Due to the lack of own resources, entrepreneurs see themselves obliged to apply for external funding. This is conditioned upon the decision of money-lending institutions that restrict loans given to borrowers because of the lack of information and guaranties provided by entrepreneurs. This situation calls for the need for public funding support. This research is structured in two different parts: the first part provides a conceptual framework about entrepreneurial activity and examines the problems to access funding with which new businesses are faced; the second part consists of an empirical analysis conducted on a sample of companies established between 2000 and 2002 that have been less than three years in operation and have used the public funding support system. In particular, the sample is made up of businesses that have obtained a guarantee from a Sociedad de Garantía Recíproca (SGR) - Mutual Guarantee Society in Spanish - (2,218), businesses that have had access to funding from banks through the Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO) - the Spanish State-owned National Credit Institution - programme for SMBs (10,018), and business that have used both systems at the same time (279). From the Sistema de Análisis de Balances Ibéricos - Iberian Balance Analysis System - database, the following data have been collected: a control group (7,516) representing businesses that have been less than three years in operation and have not procured any financial support, and two extremebehaviour groups, i.e., businesses that have not turned to long-term external funding and have financed themselves (3,291) and businesses with more than 75% of their funding coming from external long-term resources (1,720). Establishing these groups allows for the application of a counterfactual methodology whose objective is detecting the possible causal relationship between the public aid given and the performance of businesses by checking any significant differences regarding efficiency variables between the businesses that have received public funding and the ones that have not received any. For the analyses, business classification criteria such as size, area of activity, and geographical location (according to NUTS-1) have been taken into consideration. In order to reach this objective, I have conducted an analysis of efficiency variables by contrasting statistical data and analysing time series. In addition, I have conducted a factorial analysis to obtain the components that explain the efficiency variables, and an econometric model with dummy variables that goes into the sensitivity of these variables in further depth. Moreover, I have conducted a qualitative analysis by means of a survey addressed to three groups of entrepreneurs: SGR guarantee beneficiaries, ICO beneficiaries, and a sample of entrepreneurs. ICO beneficiary companies optimise the aid that they have received along their lifespan since their economic profitability is higher than that of the rest of the groups and their financial profitability is similar to that of the control sample. By contrast, the evolution of the economic profitability of businesses that obtained a guarantee is effective as long as they have financial support, but, as funds are repaid, they find new complications, and find themselves positioned under market levels. This way, the aid given by an SGR overcomes financial access barriers while the ICO aid does not seem to fulfill this objective, taking into consideration the good results obtained. Regarding productivity, all businesses progress well thanks to the incorporation of the latest technological innovations since the businesses are set up as well as the reduction in real terms of salary value. However, as long-term external capital increases so does, it seems, productivity. This means that businesses receiving financial aid perform better than the ones in the control group. It is important to stress that the point at which these businesses are in their lifespan (initial stage) and the expansive economic situation which took place as this study was being conducted have a bearing over the evolution of the ratios analysed. In this regard, as entrepreneurs acquire skills, optimise the productive structure and develop commercial skills in customer and supplier management, economic profitability and cash-flow generation increases. For their part, the companies’ financial profitability decreases as the failure risk connected to the start of activity diminishes. By contrast, banking intermediation by ICO needed to provide public funding raises the question whether financial institutions use these resources responsibly, that is, whether they provide funding only to their preferred customers. Were this to happen, the restriction on loans would not be alleviated. This particular interpretation can be read in the survey as most of ICO’s aid beneficiaries state that they would have developed their project without this kind of aid or they would have obtained the same kind of funding in similar circumstances, unlike the SGR guarantee beneficiaries. As far as the profile of the entrepreneur receiving public funding is concerned, the analysis demonstrates that the average age of entrepreneurs who apply for public aid is 40. Yet, it is worth noting that, in the last five years, entrepreneurs aged 25-35 have increased and women have also progressively started new businesses. Regarding entrepreneurial experience, for most entrepreneurs, their current company is their first entrepreneurial attempt, though they have had previous training in the same sector as they have worked for other companies or a family business before. In addition, results show that the entrepreneurs receiving public aid have assessed these financial programmes highly (on a scale where 10 is the highest, ICO and SGR programmes were rated 8 and 7 accordingly). However, this assessment should not conceal the shortcomings noticed by entrepreneurs receiving these aids such as the excessive monitoring implemented by public institutions to check investment, bureaucracy, and the administrative procedure necessary to access funding. Regarding the guarantees that entrepreneurs must supply, the system appears to be contradictory. Results show that obtaining a guarantee involves high expenses on account of the counterguarantees SGR beneficiary companies are required to supply and the requirements imposed by the bank providing the loan to insure the risk entrepreneurs are taking. Only 13% of new companies that have applied for SGR support have not been required to supply any guarantee. This way, the reciprocal guarantee system, which aims at easing the access to long-term loans, creates new obstacles which are similar to those it purports to remove by adding new requirements. Further, entrepreneurs demonstrate a high sensitivity in regard to public help. In particular, upon analysis of the components determining the performance of recent entrepreneurial activity, the contribution of public help to the creation of a company is the most relevant variable. The rest of variables that are considered relevant for starting a new business are: obtaining enough income, having a suitable product, family experience, quality of labor life and social recognition. Finally, as alternatives for growth for the companies that manage to go solid, as a response to the current economic context of recession, and as a strategy to put an end to a period of economic stagnation, this study proposes that SMBs merge among themselves as a way to grow as well as it suggests that they access stock markets for SMBs, particularly the Mercado Alternativo Bursátil (MAB) - Alternative Stock Market.