Analyses of financing gap in the SME sector

Abstract

Among other barriers for investments in small and medium companies’ development – financing gap seems to be the most serious problem in many EU countries. Both financial institutions and state authorities will need some knowledge on the subject to carry out sustainable economic growth policy, but also in the context of EU requirements concerning aid programs for business. There is a significant financing gap in SMEs in Poland; however different methods of its estimation give very different results. At the same time methodology of gap estimation models is still imperfect, as evidenced among others by large dispersion of the results. Further research in this area is necessary. Both financial institutions and state authorities will need some knowledge on the subject to adopt sustainable economic growth policy, but also in the context of EU requirements concerning aid programs for business. Hence permanent monitoring od the gap in the macroeconomic scale is necessary. Another research problem are forms of financing of SMźs’, their accessibilitв and costs for companies. Despite all the reservations for imperfection of particular models for financing gap research, they are theoretically correct and they have practical value. Further research aiming at the improvement of existing gap estimation models is justifiable.