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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the drivers influencing the risk of default on mutual guaranteed loans. The authors aim to verify whether default is influenced by the specific business policies of mutual guarantee institutions (MGIs) and to recommend guidelines for directing their operating management.

The authors analyse the guaranteed portfolios of 19 Italian MGIs and investigate the determinants of the defaulted positions at the end of June 2011. The sample consists of 167,777 guaranteed loans, of which 11,349 are in default. Using regression models, we identify the variables related to the business model of MGIs that are significantly associated with default on their positions.

The defaulted positions of MGIs are significantly correlated with the type of issued guarantees. This condition should be considered in defining product and price policies.

The authors identify some critical issues in the risk-taking processes of MGIs. The tested hypothesis highlights the opportunities for the optimisation of guaranteed loan portfolios, which is necessary for reducing the profitability/liquidity pressures of these financial institutions and enhancing their efficiency as instruments for mitigating the effects of credit rationing and promoting the revitalisation of small-and medium-sized enterprises.

The results are based on an original and reserved dataset, which is not available in public financial statements or public statistics, but is collected directly from the MGIs that are part of the study.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on public guarantees granted to micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by the Italian national credit guarantee programme (Fondo Centrale di Garanzia – Central Guarantee Fund – (CGF)). The CGF provides a direct guarantee to banks granting loans or a counter-guarantee to mutual guarantee institutions (MGIs) acting as first-level guarantors. Because the behaviour of MGIs could affect the default risk of counter-guaranteed loans, it is vital to investigate their operating and structural characteristics in order to identify an optimal design for public credit guarantee schemes (PCGSs).

Using regression models, the paper analyses the determinants of default for 33,229 SME loans guaranteed by an MGI and counter-guaranteed by the Italian CGF. The dependent variable is the ex-post default risk of SMEs’ counter-guaranteed loans in the 2010-2011 period. The explanatory variables are certain characteristics of the MGI.

The authors demonstrate that increases in an MGI’s leverage and the size of the counter-guaranteed portfolios increase the default risk. When the counter-guaranteed portfolio increases, MGIs are more risk taking but take less risk than when local and specialized MGIs are at play. Finally, direct public aid is relevant.

An appropriate design of the PCGS becomes crucial to controlling moral hazard in financial institutions and ensuring the financial sustainability of public intervention in favour of SMEs.

The paper evaluates an original and confidential firm-level data set that is not available in public documents or supervisory board statistics but is collected directly from the MGIs that participated in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether guarantees characterised by different degrees of relationship lending (particularly referring to collateral and guarantees provided by Mutual Loan Guarantee Institutions) are able to convey some entrepreneurial orientation (EO) dimensions from firms to banks.

Exploiting data from a survey of Austrian and Italian SMEs, the empirical analysis is based on a sample of 328 small business firms. To test the signalling hypothesis, the authors used logistic regressions to assess the explanatory power of EO dimensions on the presence of several types of guarantees.

The analyses suggest that collateral cannot signal any EO dimension, even when controlling for the strength of the bank – firm relationship. Furthermore, SMEs are able to mitigate their financial risk through collateral only in a multiple bank – firm relationship. Lastly, innovativeness, competitive energy and aggressiveness allow SMEs to obtain external guarantees (mutual guarantees, bank guarantees and public guarantees, respectively), helpful in order to promote credit access.

The mediation role of collateral and external guarantees on EO – credit access relation should be analysed in future research. Since the role of guarantees can change among different bank lending technologies, further studies should carefully consider lender’s characteristics. Lastly, the use of loan data in respect of the firm data can help to better separate the effect of loan and firm attributes on the collateral.

The study suggests how managers and entrepreneurs should manage the financial risk through collateral in different situations (one–to–one and multiple bank – firm relationship). Furthermore, depending on the level of innovativeness, competitive energy and aggressiveness, a firm should request a specific type of external guarantees in order to increment the credit availability, to maximise the possibility of success and to improve its performance.

To the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to analyse whether EO affects the request for guarantees instead of credit access. This can be helpful especially when the banks involved in the relation apply a transaction lending technology.

The current credit rationing strongly influences the viability of SMEs innovation projects. In this context, the practice of screening borrowers by project success probability has become a paramount consideration for both lenders and firms. The aim of this paper is to test the screening role of loan contracts that consider collateral-interest margins simultaneously.

This paper presents an empirical analysis that uses a unique data set composed of 323 bank loans granted by 28 banks to SMEs backed by a Spanish Mutual Guarantee Institution.

The results show that appropriate combinations of collateral and interest rates can distinguish between borrowers with different project success probability: low success probability borrowers finance its projects without collateral and with high interest rates, whereas high success probability borrowers accept loans with real estate collateral and low interest rates.

This screening mechanism reduces credit rationing, thus increasing good projects' access to credit.

This study provides the first empirical evidence on the effectiveness of collateral-interest pairs as a self-selection mechanism.

Micro-finance has a significant role in the better performance of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). This study aims to provide a comprehensive picture of the existing literature on the role of micro-finance and its approaches in MSMEs.

This work performs a bibliometric analysis using a data set of 631 articles collected from the Scopus database. The Bibliometrix R package and Vosviewer are used to conduct performance analysis and scientific mapping. Performance analysis shows the publication trend, key authors, journals and top influential articles. Science mapping through a bibliographic coupling network of documents is prepared to discover the intellectual structure of the field.

This review has identified the four major themes: access to finance and schemes, women empowerment and poverty alleviation, the performance of micro-finance institutions and recent development in micro-financial institutions. With the help of these research themes, the paper also highlights future research agendas.

This paper enriches the understanding of the role of micro-finance services in performance of entrepreneurship with the bibliometric review of top contributors.

This paper investigates the effect of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on small- and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) access to credit. Starting with the idea that SMEs' strategy-making process, structures and behaviour can favour credit access, the authors also explore the moderating role of bank lending technologies in shaping this relationship.

This study relies on a unique survey of Austrian and Italian SMEs which contains detailed information on access to credit, EO dimensions, relationship lending and firm-level characteristics. The authors perform stepwise logistic regressions to assess whether EO interacts with SME's access to finance, and how relationship lending enhances this relationship.

Proactiveness, autonomy and competitive aggressiveness are important constructs for improving access to bank financing. Those dimensions became more important when a relationship bank is involved, suggesting a role for relationship lending in overcoming SMEs' opaqueness. In addition, relationship lending is crucial for innovative SMEs in overcoming credit denial rates.

The small sample did not allow to analyse the effect of EO on discouraged borrowers. Furthermore, alternative measures of relationship lending (such as geographical proximity or the length of the relationship) and the share of credit granted by the relationship bank would have been interesting to further validate our results.

This study shows that EO dimensions and the type of lending technology are relevant for the financial success of SMEs. More precisely, the authors show that diversity within the banking system helps innovative, autonomous, proactive and competitive SMEs. These important pieces of soft information are injected into the final lending decision when a relationship bank is involved. The evidence suggests the need for SMEs to interact with local banks to fully exploit their EO posture.

To the authors' knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to analyse whether relationship lending can affect the EO–credit access relation.

The aim of this paper is to define which characteristics of a hotel and staff organization determine successful revenue management (RM) implementation in urban hotels.

Multiple linear regression analysis was used to determine whether the characteristics of the hotel and the staff member in charge of RM are explanatory variables for the degree of RM implementation.

The findings show that hotel category, chain affiliation and the existence of qualified full-time staff are the determinants for successful RM implementation. The creation of the revenue manager position alone is not determinant in the degree of RM implementation, but his/her qualification and dedication are fundamental variables.

Given that this survey was confined to the region of Madrid, it would be interesting to carry out similar research nationwide.

This study provides researchers and professionals guidance for the satisfactory implementation and use of RM, tailored to the characteristics of any given establishment. Therefore, this paper states that the creation of a qualified, on-site, full-time revenue manager position is crucial.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to conduct a formal statistical analysis of the relationship between hotel characteristics, staff organization and the degree of RM implementation. The greatest contribution of this research is the empirical demonstration that having a qualified full-time staff in charge of RM leads to better results in terms of RM implementation as opposed to not having one, having one part-time or having one at the corporate level. Therefore, this paper states that the creation of the professional revenue manager position within hotels is fundamental. Thus, the reported results provide a significant contribution to the literature related to the characteristics and organization of RM in hotels.

This paper seeks to examine the relationship between policy benchmarking, democracy and authoritarianism.

The paper uses theoretical investigation of different methodological perspectives of policy benchmarking and their relationship with principles of democracy and authoritarianism and analysis of the case of the European Union (EU) on the basis of empirical data.

Identifies two methodological perspectives of policy benchmarking: the first, grounded on the principle of learning and the bottom‐up approach, is close to democracy; the second, based on the principle of copying and the top‐down approach, is close to authoritarianism. The application of policy benchmarking in the EU so far appears to include elements of both democracy and authoritarianism.

The paper is not exhaustive as regards methodological approaches to policy benchmarking and theories of democracy and authoritarianism.

Crucial methodological and ethico‐political implications for the use of benchmarking in the enlarged EU of 25.

This original piece of work provides clear answer to the question of relationship between policy benchmarking, democracy and authoritarianism. The paper contributes to academic debate of public policy, offering, at the same time, practical methodological help to policy‐makers.

Faced with the financing problem of small-medium enterprises (SMEs), China has attempted to establish as many as third party's collateral institutions. The paper aims to study the design of collateral arrangements including collateral fee rates, risk sharing, collateral capital requirements, types of collateral institutions and recollateral institution, etc.

The paper extends the model of Holmstrom and Tirole to develop the analytic framework of the theory of financing collateral. From the perspective of contract design, the paper establishes a moral hazard model focusing on the minimum capital requirement of the borrower under the condition of risk neutral and limited liability, while considering the structure of lender-collateral institution-borrower.

According to the research, only under certain conditions can third party's collateral arrangements tackle the financing problems of SMEs. Diversification, anti-collateral and linked-transactions are three means to improve financing conditions, but the most important way is efficient monitoring by collateral institutions, especially when it has relative advantage over the lender. In order to improve financing conditions of SMEs, China should rely more on efficient monitoring by banks not on excess development of collateral institutions, meanwhile relax rigid collateral supervision policies. Collateral institutions should be industry-specific, association or transaction-related type.

First, from the perspective of contract design, the paper analyzes the comprehensive institutional arrangements of third party's collateral considering mutual relationships of component elements and develops the analytic framework of the theory of third party's collateral, especially points out necessary conditions of its efficient arrangements. Second, the paper studies various efficient financing mechanisms under the institutional arrangements of third party's collateral and focusing on the role of monitoring and monitors, and the paper also has important policy implications, i.e. the paper should develop specific collateral institutions and promote monitoring role of credit institutions.

Studies of Depression-era financial remediation have generally focused on federal deposit insurance and the provision of equity to banks by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). This paper broadens the concept of financial remediation to include other programs – RFC lending, federal guarantees of farm and home mortgages, and the elimination of interest on demand deposits – and other intermediaries – savings and loans, mutual savings banks, and life insurance companies. The benefits of remediation or the amounts potentially at risk to the government in these programs are calculated annually and allocated to the various intermediaries. The slow remediation of real estate loans (two-thirds of these intermediaries' loans) needs further study with respect to the slow economic recovery. The paper compares Depression-era remediation with efforts during the 2008–2009 crisis. Today's remediation contrasts with the 1930s in its speed, magnitude relative to GDP or private sector nonfinancial debt, the share of remediation going to nonbanks, and emphasis on securities markets.