은행산업의 시장집중도가 중소기업의 자금조달 및 경영성과에 미치는 영향

We investigate the role of the banking industry to assist the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and further to achieve balanced development between regions. We analyze the effect of the banking industry structure on SMEs’ financing behavior and operating performance. According to our cross-country data analysis, the banking industry structure and SME financing turn out to be related to each other. Countries with highly concentrated banking industry and those with high proportion of short-term loan tend to have low proportion of SMEs in their economy. In addition, interest profit margin of banks tends to be high in countries with highly oligopolized structure of the large banks. According to our empirical analysis using Korean firm-level data, unlisted firms and small-sized firms tend to designate a local bank as their main bank in non-metropolitan area. Local banks which usually have lower liquidities and funds than big commercial banks maintain business with local unlisted small firms. However, in the regions where local banks lost their name due to the M&As, the characteristics of local banks are not typically shown. Companies which designate a local bank as their main bank tend to have high proportion of short-term loan, while those which designate a big commercial bank as their main bank have high proportion of long-term loan. Companies with high proportion of long-term loan tend to be highly profitable, but short-term loan is not significantly related with the operating performance.