Politiche di sostegno alle imprese e corruzione. Un’analisi empirica sulle PMI, in S.P.S. Rossi (eds.), Superando il guado. Innovazione, esportazioni e strategie delle imprese tra vincoli finanziari, ambientali e di capitale umano

This chapter aims at analyzing the effects of perceived corruption on the probability of demanding public subsidies in the form of support from public sources, such as guarantees or reduced interest rate loans, by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The empirical analysis is based on a sample of 114,443 observations related to SMEs located in 31 countries, over the period 2009-2018. The firm level data come from the Survey Access to Finance of Enterprises (SAFE) run by the European Central Bank, while the country level data on corruption are retrieved from the leading international indicators. Our results show that both, current and past corruption have a negative impact on the use of public subsidies. However, this impact is lower in countries where the perceived corruption is lower.