The impact of financial and economic crisis on SME's in Greece and Ireland

Abstract

The impact of financial and economic crisis influencing economic development in EU countries is analysed predominately on macroeconomic level. Major part of economic studies analyse the effect of crisis on both real and potential economic growth, unemployment, inflation and debt dynamic. However the effects of the crisis are visible also at microeconomic level. The economic results of businesses are significantly influenced by the negative macroeconomic development at both national and international level. Both decrease in potential growth and purchasing power due to economic recession and more restrictive fiscal policy have a direct impact on aggregate demand and thus the microeconomic sector as whole. Additional source of problems is connected with banking sector crisis and the access to financing mainly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s). The aim of the paper is to fill the gap in economic research and to analyse the impact of the ongoing crisis on business entities in selected eurozone member countries. Authors selected two eurozone member countries from EU periphery (Greece and Ireland). Both countries are severely hit by economic crisis and authors suppose that also their business sector will be significantly influenced. However author believes that the structural differences will lead over the time in faster recovery of Irish businesses in contrast to the Greek one.We create dataset using Amadeus database which contains the harmonized data about statistically significant set of business in selected countries. Authors then sorting the data according selected variables such as size of the company, NACE categorization and comparative indicators of individual business economic performance, namely representatives of indicators groups profitability, solvency, liquidity and indebtedness/financial structure of business entities. For the purpose of analysis authors analyse the data series three years before the crisis (2005, 2006 and 2007) and the three years of crisis (2008, 2009 and 2010). The dataset consists of 3,567 business entities in both observed countries. In the study we use the cluster analysis to detect some basic patterns and trends in business sector in terms of homogeneity within dataset. Based on the results of microeconomic environment analysis (impact of crisis and national economic policies) authors assess the optimal reaction of economic policy (both national and EU) to improve the condition of businesses which authors believe are the source of future economic recovery.