In this chapter, we investigate whether the choice of a particular
source of funds represented by trade credit is associated to technical efficiency
progress for a large sample of Italian manufacturing small and medium
enterprises (SMEs) observed from 2003 to 2007. Applying a data envelopment
analysis (DEA) approach to firm-level data, we retrieve a measure of technical
efficiency change and perform some nonparametric tests to verify whether the
differences observed are significant. According to our results, higher trade
credit ratios tend to be associated to firm efficiency gains in almost all the
sectors under analysis.
Keywords: Data envelopment analysis (DEA), efficiency gains, firm size,
Italian firms, Malmquist index, small and medium enterprises (SMEs),
suppliers credit, technical efficiency change, trade credit, trade debt.
