Do trade credits finance long-term investments?

Abstract

Our model indicates that European firms across all size categories use trade credits to purchase 6%–15% of tangible fixed assets and 14%–30% of intangible assets in the short-run. A long-run target adjustment model shows that large firms eventually replace most of this temporary trade credit financing with cheaper sources of funds. However, even in the long-run, small firms finance 4%–6% of tangible fixed asset purchases and 5%–10% of intangible fixed asset purchases using trade credit. Since smaller firms do not have the same access to bank credit as larger firms, trade credit is used to fund long-term investments Trade credit is therefore a key component in the capital structure decisions of smaller firms and it should be included in their weighted-average cost of capital calculations.