Trade credit policy and firm value

  1. Cristina Martínez-Sola
  2. Pedro J. García-Teruel
  3. Pedro Martínez-Solano
Journal:
Working papers = Documentos de trabajo: Serie EC - (Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas)

Year of publication: 2012

Issue: 1

Type: Working paper

Abstract

This paper studies the shape of the relation between firm value and trade credit for a sample of Spanish listed firms in the period 2001 to 2007. Considering the tradeoff between benefits and costs of investing in trade credit we estimate a non-linear relationship between accounts receivable and firm value. As expected, the results obtained show a positive relation between firm value and trade credit at low levels of receivables and a negative one at high levels. To give robustness to the results, we analyze whether deviation from target accounts receivable level reduces firm value. Consistent with the previous analysis, we find that deviations from this level of receivables decrease firm value.