metadata: authors: 0: author: Love,Inessa
1: author: Martinez Peria,Maria Soledad
2: author: Singh,Sandeep
count: World
docna: 0: docna: Collateral registries for movable assets :
            does their introduction spur firms' access to bank
            finance ?
docty: Policy Research Working Paper
subtopic: Social Policy,Legal Products,Judicial System Reform,Construction Industry,Common Carriers Industry,Food & Beverage Industry,General Manufacturing,Pulp & Paper Industry,Plastics & Rubber Industry,Common Property Resource Development,Inflation,Legal Reform,Employment and Unemployment,Legislation,Regulatory Regimes,Business Cycles and Stabilization Policies,Financial Structures,Access to Finance
teratopic: Private Sector Development,Finance and Financial Sector Development
abstracts: cdata!: Using firm-level surveys for up to 73
            countries, this paper explores the impact of introducing
            collateral registries for movable assets on firms'
            access to bank finance. It compares firms' access to
            bank finance in seven countries that introduced collateral
            registries for movable assets against three control groups:
            firms in all countries that did not introduce a registry,
            firms in a sample of countries matched by location and
            income per capita to the countries that introduced
            registries for movable assets, and firms in countries that
            undertook other types of collateral reforms but did not set
            up registries for movable assets. Overall, the analysis
            finds that introducing collateral registries for movable
            assets increases firms' access to bank finance. There
            is also some evidence that this effect is larger among
            smaller firms.
repnme: repnme: Collateral registries for movable assets :
            does their introduction spur firms' access to bank
            finance ?
display_title: Collateral registries for movable
            assets : does their introduction spur firms' access to
            bank finance
listing_relative_url: /research/2013/06/17840507/collateral-registries-movable-assets-introduction-spur-firms-access-bank-finance
topicv3: Manufacturing Sectors m1326521 1281,Inflation m1326709 0870F4727ACED1CF8525815C00471347,Collateral Registries m1327249 356,Access to Finance m1327464 1249,Enterprise Surveys m1504072 2762
publishtoextweb_dt: 2013-06-01T00:00:00Z
historic_topic: Private Sector Development,Finance and Financial Sector Development
no_of_pages: 35
author_keys: 0: author_key: 619422
1: author_key: 321097
2: author_key: 1182858
model_extractions: WPS6477 Policy Research Working Paper 6477 Collateral Registries for Movable Assets Does Their Introduction Spur Firms’ Access to Bank Finance?

_Inessa Love María Soledad Martínez Pería Sandeep Singh_ The World Bank Development Research Group Finance and Private Sector Development Team June 2013
Policy Research Working Paper 6477

# **Abstract**

Using firm-level surveys for up to 73 countries, this paper explores the impact of introducing collateral registries for movable assets on firms’ access to bank finance. It compares firms’ access to bank finance in seven countries that introduced collateral registries for movable assets against three control groups: firms in all countries that did not introduce a registry, firms in a sample of countries matched by location and income per capita to the countries that introduced registries for movable assets, and firms in countries that undertook other types of collateral reforms but did not set up registries for movable assets. Overall, the analysis finds that introducing collateral registries for movable assets increases firms’ access to bank finance. There is also some evidence that this effect is larger among smaller firms.

This paper is a product of the Finance and Private Sector Development Team, Development Research Group. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://econ.worldbank.org. The authors may be contacted at mmartinezperia@worldbank.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
# **Collateral Registries for Movable Assets:**

**Does Their Introduction Spur Firms’ Access to Bank Finance?**<sup>∗</sup>

Inessa Love, María Soledad Martínez Pería and Sandeep Singh

**Keywords:** movable collateral, access to bank finance

**JEL:** K20, G21, G30

# **Board:** FSE

> ∗ Inessa Love is an Associate Professor at the University of Hawaii; Maria Soledad Martinez Peria is the Research Manager of the Finance and Private Sector Development Group of the Development Research Department of the World Bank, and Sandeep Singh is a Consultant at the World Bank. We are grateful to Mehnaz Safavian, Jose María Garrido, Santiago Croci and other participants at the World Bank Global Financial Development Report Seminar Series for comments and suggestions. We also received valuable inputs from Alejandro Alvarez de la Campa. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the World Bank, its Excecutive Directors or the countries they represent. Corresponding author: Maria Soledad Martinez Peria, The World Bank, 1818 H St. MSN MC 3-307, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20433. mmartinezperia@worldbank.org

<mark>1</mark>
# **1. Introduction**

To reduce asymmetric information problems associated with extending credit and increase the chances of loan repayment, banks typically require collateral from their borrowers.<sup>1</sup> For example, according to World Bank Enterprise Surveys performed in over 100 countries, collateral was required in over 75% of all loans.<sup>2</sup> Many theoretical models postulate that the availability of collateral is a binding constraint on financing, and that this constraint binds harder in more underdeveloped financial markets (Liberti and Mian, 2010). Empirically, insufficient collateral is one of the main reasons firms are rejected when they apply for bank credit (Fleisig et al., 2006).

Movable assets, as opposed to fixed assets such as land or buildings, often account for most of the capital stock of private firms and comprise an especially large share for micro, small and medium-size enterprises. For example, in the developing world 78% of the capital stock of businesses is typically in movable assets such as machinery, equipment or receivables, and only 22% is in immovable property (see Alvarez de la Campa, 2011). Hence, movable assets are the main type of collateral that firms, especially those in developing countries, can pledge to obtain bank financing. However, banks in developing countries are usually reluctant to accept movable assets as collateral due to the inadequate legal and regulatory environment in which banks and firms co-exist. In this context, movable assets become “dead capital” (Fleisig et al, 2006).<sup>3</sup> While a sound legal and regulatory framework is essential to allow movable assets to be used as collateral, registries for movable assets fulfill two key functions: to notify parties about the existence of a security interest in movable property (of existing liens) and to establish the

> 1 See Steijvers and Voordeckers (2009) for a recent survey of empirical studies on the use of collateral to mitigate credit rationing.

> 2 Enterprise surveys are available at http://www.enterprisesurveys.org/

> 3 For example, Safavian at al. (2006) claim that nearly 90 percent of movable property that could serve as collateral for a loan in the United States would likely be unacceptable to a lender in Nigeria.

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priority of creditors vis-a-vis third parties (Alvarez de la Campa, 2011).<sup>4</sup> Therefore, without a well-functioning registry for movable assets, even the best secured transactions laws could be ineffective or even useless.

Given the importance of collateral registries for moveable assets, 18 countries have established such registries in the past decade. However, to our knowledge there is no systematic empirical evidence on whether such reforms have been effective in fulfilling their primary goal: improving firms’ access to bank finance.<sup>5</sup> This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature.

Specifically, this paper explores the impact of introducing collateral registries for movable assets on firms' access to bank finance using firm-level surveys for 73 countries. Following a difference-in-difference approach, we compare access to bank finance pre and post the introduction of movable collateral registries in seven countries (i.e., the reform or treatment sample) against three different “control” groups: a) firms in all countries that did not implement collateral reforms during our sample frame (59 countries), b) firms in a sample of countries matched by location and income per capita to the countries that introduced movable collateral registries (7 countries), and c) firms in countries that undertook collateral legal reforms but did not set up registries for movable assets (7 countries). This difference-in-difference approach controlling for fixed country and time effects allows us to isolate the impact of the introduction of movable collateral registries on firms’ access to bank finance.

Overall, we find that introducing movable collateral registries increases firms' access to bank finance. In particular, our baseline estimations indicate that the introduction of registries for movable assets is associated with an increase in the likelihood that a firm has a bank loan, line of

> 4 Specifically, three conditions are required for banks to be able to accept movable assets as collateral: the creation of security interest, the perfection of security interest and the enforcement of security interest (see Fleisig, 1995). The movable collateral registry is a necessary component as it allows for the “perfection” of security interest. 5 There is some anecdotal evidence based on case studies reported in IFC (2010) that two countries that have introduced electronic registries have reported an increase in registrations and cheaper credit.

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credit or overdraft, a rise in the share of the firm’s working capital and fixed assets financed by banks, a reduction in the interest rates paid on loans, and an increase in the maturity of bank loans. The impact is economically significant: registry reform increases access to bank finance by almost 8 percentage points and access to loans by 7 percentage points. These are sizeable effects considering that in our sample, about 60 percent of firms have access to finance and 47 percent have a loan. There is also some evidence that the impact of the introduction of registries for movable assets on firms’ access to bank finance is larger among smaller firms, who also report a reduction in a subjective, perception-based measure of finance obstacles.

Our paper is related to the large literature that investigates whether collateral reduces credit rationing and increases access to finance, which follows the seminal work of Stiglitz and Weiss (1981). However, this literature largely focuses on the US and other developed countries.<sup>6</sup> One of the few related papers that uses non-US data is Liberti and Mian (2010), who investigate how financial development affects the costs and types of collateral used in 15 countries. They find that the cost of collateral declines with improved financial development. More relevant for our study, they also find that in more financially developed countries firms can use more “firmspecific” assets, i.e., movable assets. However, they do not investigate the impact of the cost of collateral on firms’ access to finance as their data come from one large multinational bank, neither do they explore changes in collateral laws and the introduction of collateral registries for movable assets, which is the focus of our paper.

Another related and recent study is by Nguyen and Qian (2012), who investigate the prevalence and determinants of the use of collateral in 43 countries and find that in countries with better institutions, firms are less likely to pledge collateral. However, their study does not consider the relationship between movable collateral registries and access to finance.

> 6 See Steijvers and Voordeckers (2009) for a recent survey.

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Our paper is also closely related to the literature on the establishment of credit bureaus and credit registries, which play a similar role to collateral registries in improving credit availability. Theory suggests that information sharing can overcome adverse selection and moral hazard problems in credit markets (Pagano and Jappelli, 1993 and Padilla and Pagano, 2000). The ability of creditors to repossess collateral should have a similar effect on reducing adverse selection and moral hazard in credit markets. Using aggregate cross-country data Jappelli and Pagano (2002) show that bank lending is higher and credit risk is lower in countries where lenders share information. Similarly, Djankov, McLiesh and Shleifer (2007) show that quality of credit information is correlated with higher levels of private credit. Using firm level data Love and Mylenko (2005) show that the establishment of credit registries reduces firms’ credit constraints and, more recently, Brown, Jappelli and Pagano (2009) use panel data from 24 countries in Eastern Europe to show that information sharing is associated with improved availability and lower cost of credit to firms. Using bank-level data, Houston et al. (2010) show that greater information sharing leads to higher bank profitability, lower bank risk, a reduced likelihood of financial crisis, and higher economic growth. While the research in support of the establishment of credit registries has flourished in recent decades, to our knowledge, this is the first paper to investigate the impact of introducing of collateral registries for movable assets on firms’ access to finance.

Finally, our paper also relates to a broader literature that investigates the importance of the legal system for the availability and costs of finance. Following the seminal work of La Porta et al (1998), who brought to the spotlight the relationship between creditor rights and financial development, a number of subsequent studies have explored this relationship empirically in various settings. For example, Demirguc-Kunt and Maksimovic (1998) find that in countries 5
whose legal systems score high on an efficiency index, a greater proportion of firms use longterm external financing. Djankov et al. (2007) find that better creditor protection is associated with higher ratios of private credit to GDP. Qian and Strahan (2007) find that better creditor protection results in more concentrated ownership of syndicated loans, longer maturities, and lower interest rates. Bae and Goyal (2009) find that weaker enforceability of contracts results in smaller loan amounts, shorter loan maturities, and higher loan spreads. More closely related to our work, Haselmann et al. (2010) find that legal reforms increase the supply of bank credit in 12 transition countries. Importantly, they also find that changes in collateral laws have larger impact than changes in bankruptcy laws. However, none of the papers above has investigated the specific reform we are focusing on – the introduction of collateral registries for movable assets.

The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 discusses the data used in our analysis. Section 3 lays out the empirical methodology. Section 4 presents the empirical results. Section 5 concludes.

# **2. Data**

We use two main datasets to study the impact of the introduction of collateral registries for movable assets on firms’ access to bank finance: the _Doing Business_ and the _Enterprise Surveys_ datasets compiled by the World Bank.<sup>7</sup> The Doing Business dataset contains annual measures of business regulations for local firms in 185 economies since 2004.<sup>8</sup> In particular, this dataset allows us to identify the countries and years when movable collateral registries were introduced. We also use this source to pinpoint countries that undertook other types of reforms that strengthened collateral laws.

> 7 Fleisig et al. (2006) endorse the use of these datasets to study the impact of reforming collateral regimes. 8 The Doing Business dataset  can be found at http://www.doingbusiness.org.

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The Enterprise Survey dataset provides firm-level data on access to bank finance and other firm characteristics. The survey includes various questions on access to bank finance. First, the survey asks firms if they have a loan, line of credit or overdraft.<sup>9</sup> Second, the survey identifies firms that currently have a loan. Third, the survey asks firms to report the share of working capital and, separately, of fixed assets financed by banks. Fourth, for firms that have a loan, the dataset includes information on the interest rate and maturity of the most recent loan. Finally, the Enterprise Survey asks firms to rate the severity of access to finance as an obstacle for their operations and growth. The Enterprise Survey also includes information on other firm characteristics such as size, ownership, exporter status, and sector, which we include as control variables in our estimations.

In order to be able to control for country fixed effects in our estimations, we only consider countries with at least two Enterprise Surveys since 2002, when these surveys were published with standardized country data matched to a common set of questions to allow crosscountry analyses. In addition, because our primary interest is to study the impact of the introduction of collateral registries for movable assets on access to finance, we are only able to include countries with such reforms that have at least one enterprise survey before the reform and at least one after the reform. Our final sample includes 73 countries. Among these countries, 7 introduced a collateral registry for movable assets (Bosnia, Croatia, Guatemala, Peru, Rwanda, Serbia, and Ukraine) and 7 implemented other types of collateral reforms without introducing a registry for movable assets (Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritius, Poland, Romania, and Vietnam).<sup>10</sup> We also pick a sample of 7 countries from our sample of non-reform countries: –

> 9 Appendix 1 describes in detail how we generate the dependent variables.

> 10 The collateral registry is one of the items in the Doing Business “Getting Credit” index, which in addition contains 7 components that pertain to movable collateral laws and two components pertaining to bankruptcy laws. Some of the collateral reforms outside from the introduction of a registry include: allowing out-of-court enforcement

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Macedonia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Belarus, Burkina Faso and Azerbaijan- that are matched to the registry reform countries based on their region and their per capita GDP. Table 1 shows the countries and surveys used in our analysis and identifies (a) countries that introduced collateral registries for movable assets, (b) countries that introduced other collateral reforms, (c) countries that did not introduce any reforms and are not part of the match sample, and (d) countries matched based on availability of surveys, region and GDP per capita to our sample of countries that introduced a collateral registry for movable assets.<sup>11</sup> Table 2 lists the treatment countries (i.e., those that introduced movable collateral registries) along with their respective matched countries, including details on the survey years, region and GDP per capita (our three matching criteria).

For each country that introduced a registry for movable collateral, Figure 1 shows the share of firms that reported having access to a line of credit, loan or overdraft in the period before and after the registry for movable collateral was introduced. With the exception of Guatemala, all countries that introduced a registry for movable collateral seemed to have experienced a significant increase in access.<sup>12</sup> Figure 2 compares the share of firms with access to a bank loan, line of credit or overdraft in countries that introduced collateral registries for movable assets vis-a-vis the matched sample of countries that did not introduce such registries. This graph shows that the share of firms with access is higher among reform countries. Both Figure 1 and Figure 2 offer prima facie evidence that introducing a collateral registry for movable assets improves firm access to finance. However, more rigorous evidence that controls

> of collateral (e.g., Armenia, Georgia, Mauritius, Romania) and introducing a law that allows a business to grant a nonpossessory security right in a single category of movable assets (such as accounts receivable or inventory), without requiring a specific description of the collateral (e.g., Kyrgyzstan, Vietnam):

> 11 The matched countries may or may not have a pre-existing registry, but have not had a registry reform (i.e. new registry introduction) within our sample frame.

> 12 Alvarez de la Campa et al. (2012) conduct a survey of movable registries in 35 jurisdictions including Guatemala and show that relative to other registries the Guatemalan  registry charged higher fees and consequently was not used frequently by firms.

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for firm characteristics and country and time effects is required to be able to reach more definitive conclusions regarding the impact of introducing a registry for movable assets. We turn to this analysis next.

# **3. Empirical Methodology**

We examine the impact of introducing a collateral registry for movable assets on firms’ access to bank finance by estimating equation (1) below: _Access Finance Indicator_ i,j,t = β _Registry reform_ j,t + Xi,j,t + Zj,t + α j + γt + εi,j,t (1) where _Access Finance Indicator_ refers to seven different measures of firms’ access to credit for firm i in country j at time t: _Access to Finance_ is a dummy that takes the value of 1 if the firm has a line of credit, loan or overdraft; _Access to Loans_ is a dummy that captures whether the firm has an outstanding loan; _Financing Obstacle_ takes the value of 1 if the firm considers access to finance a major or severe obstacle to its operations and growth; _Working Capital Financed by Banks_ is the percentage of the firm’s working capital that is financed by banks; _Fixed Assets Financed by Banks_ is the share of the firm’s fixed assets financed by banks; _Interest Rate_ refers to the interest rate paid by the firm on the most recent loan and, finally, _Maturity_ is the maturity (in months) for the firm’s most recent loan. _X_ is a matrix of firm-level characteristics including firm size, ownership type (government or foreign owned), exporter status, and sector (manufacturing versus services). Z refers to a matrix of country-level variables that might influence firms’ access to finance, which includes the inflation rate, the GDP growth rate, and a measure of financial sector development (private credit to GDP), obtained from the World 9
Development Indicators database. α j and γt represent country and year fixed effects, respectively. Country fixed effects are important in our estimations as they allow us to capture any other country-specific characteristics that can impact access to finance, such as the quality of the contract laws and their enforcement. Country fixed effects can also capture country specific differences in the demand for loans. Time effects control for the impact of common shocks across countries. Hence, country and time fixed effects help isolate the impact of collateral registry reform from all other country differences and time effects. Table 3 provides data sources and detailed definitions for each of the variables used in our estimations. Table 4 presents summary statistics.

Our primary variable of interest is _Registry Reform_ , which is equal to one for all countries that introduced a collateral registry for movable assets but only for the years after the reform. Thus, the _Registry Reform_ variable can be thought of as the interaction of a dummy for the set of countries that introduced a collateral registry for movable assets during our sample period (i.e. the treatment sample) with a country-specific dummy which identifies the years after reform. Thus, our empirical methodology is akin to a difference-in-difference format, comparing countries with reform and countries without reform, and years pre- and post-reform. Because of the country fixed effects, we do not need to include a separate time-invariant dummy for reform countries.

We conduct different estimations of equation (1) varying the sample of countries included in the regressions. The “treatment sample” (i.e., those 7 countries that introduced collateral registries for movable assets – i.e. the “reform” countries) does not change, but we vary the “control group”. First, we consider all non-reform countries as part of the control group. This includes 59 countries. Second, we consider a matched sample of countries, obtained by 10
pairing each of the reform countries with a country in the same region with a similar level of per capita income. This sample includes a total of 14 countries (i.e., 7 reformers and 7 matched controls). Finally, because most countries (with the exception of Croatia, Guatemala, and Serbia) that introduced collateral registries for movable assets also reformed their collateral laws, we consider as control countries those that reformed their collateral legal framework but did not introduce a collateral registry for movable assets.<sup>13</sup> This sample consists of 7 countries that undertook changes in their collateral laws. By comparing the sample of countries that introduced the registry with those that undertook other collateral (legal) reforms, we are able to isolate the impact of the introduction of a registry for movable collateral.

Finally, we allow for a heterogeneous impact of registry reform across firms by estimating a version of equation (1) interacting the _Registry Reform_ dummy with firm size dummies. In particular, we include two dummies for small (those with less than 20 employees) and medium sized (those with 20 to 99 employees) firms. A priori, we expect SMEs, which have been shown to be more credit constrained (Beck et al., 2005, 2006, 2008) to benefit more from the introduction of a collateral registry for movable assets.

# **4. Results**

# **_Baseline estimations_**

Table 5 shows our baseline estimations where we assess the impact of the introduction of collateral registries for movable assets on firm access to bank finance. As discussed above, we do this by comparing different indicators of firms’ access to finance before and after the introduction of movable collateral registries vis-a-vis the complete sample of 59 countries that

> 13 We also tried running regressions including as the treatment group only those countries that introduced a movable collateral registry without undertaking any other legal reform (i.e., Croatia, Guatemala and Serbia) and found similar results.

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did not set up a collateral registry for movable assets during our period of analysis. Columns (1) and (2) show that the introduction of a collateral registry for movable assets has a statistically significant and positive impact on the likelihood that a firm has access to finance broadly (access to a loan, line of credit or overdraft) or narrowly (access to a loan) defined. This effect is also economically significant: the introduction of a collateral registry for movable assets increases access to bank finance by almost 8 percentage points and access to loans by 7 percentage points. These are a sizeable effects considering that on average 60 percent of firms have access to finance and 47 percent have a loan.

As shown in columns (4) and (5), respectively, the introduction of a movable collateral registry also increases the percentage of working capital and of fixed assets financed by banks by 10 and 20 percent respectively. These effects are very large considering that in our sample on average 14 and 18 percent of firms’ working capital and fixed assets, respectively, are financed by banks.

For firms with a loan, columns (6) and (7) show that the introduction of a collateral registry for movable assets affects loan terms significantly. In particular, the introduction of a registry is associated with a 3 percentage point reduction in interest rates and a 6 month extension of the maturity of a loan. As before, these effects are considerable, given that the average interest rate is 13 percent and the average loan maturity is 31 months.

# **_Robustness checks_**

We conduct a number of estimations to verify the robustness of our results. First, to correct for cross-country differences in the number of firms (i.e., to account for the fact that in two rounds of surveys, over 4,500 firms were surveyed in India and less than 300 were surveyed 12
in Malawi) we conduct regressions weighted by the inverse of the number of observations per country. Effectively, what we do when we apply this weighting scheme is to give equal weight to each country in our sample. These results are shown in Table 6.

Table 6 shows that the introduction of registries for movable assets continues to have a significant impact on most indicators of access to finance once we weight our estimations by the inverse of the number of firms sampled in each country. In particular, we find that the adoption of a collateral registry for movable assets has a positive impact on the likelihood that a firm has access to a loan, line of credit or overdraft; it significantly lowers the interest rate on loans, while at the same time increasing the maturity of the financing.

Second, we run estimations where we contrast results for the seven countries that introduced a collateral registry for movable assets against a matched sample of seven countries selected based on the availability of pre- and post-reform surveys, the geographic location, and GDP per capita of each reform country. These results are reported in Table 7. Despite a large drop in our sample size, our results remain robust. Thus, Table 7 confirms that the adoption of a collateral registry for movable assets has a positive impact on the likelihood that a firm has access to a loan, line of credit or overdraft; it increases the share of working capital financed by banks and it significantly lowers the interest rate on loans.

Third, because four out of the seven countries that introduced collateral registries also introduced other changes to their collateral legal framework, we run estimations with a control sample of countries that introduced reforms to their collateral laws but did not set up a movable collateral registry. The purpose of these estimations is to isolate the impact of setting up a registry for movable collateral from that of changes in collateral laws that are often undertaken at the same time the movable collateral registry is introduced. These results are presented in Table 13
8, which shows that the introduction of a collateral registry for movable assets increases the likelihood that the firm will have access to finance broadly defined (i.e., access to a loan, line of credit or overdraft), raises the share of fixed assets financed by banks and lengthens the maturity of bank loans. Hence, the introduction of a movable collateral registry has an impact on access to finance over and above the impact of changes in the collateral laws.

# **_Exploring differences across small, medium, and large firms_**

An extensive literature has shown that small and medium sized firms tend to be more financially constrained than their large counterparts (Schiffer and Weder, 2001; Cressy, 2002, IADB, 2004; and Beck et al., 2005, 2006, and 2008). Hence, it is interesting to investigate whether SMEs are more likely to benefit from the introduction of collateral registries for movable assets which effectively allow firms to widen the range of asset that they can pledge in exchange for financing. Table 9 repeats our baseline estimations (i.e., those including all non-reform countries as part of the control group) but incorporating interactions of the registry reform variable with separate dummies that identify small (5-19 employees) and medium sized firms (20-99 employees). The results provide some evidence that small firms benefit more than large firms from the introduction of registries for movable collateral. In particular, the impact of registries is stronger for small firms in the regressions for the likelihood of access to finance, the probability that the firm reports experiencing severe financing constraints, and the share of working capital and of fixed assets financed by banks. Interestingly, the subjective reporting of financing constraints by firms is only significantly reduced for small and medium firms (as it was not significant for the overall sample in our previous regressions).

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In additional regressions (not reported), we reproduce Table 9 with interactions using our matched control sample and the sample of countries that introduced changes to their collateral laws. In both cases the results also show that the impact of registries is stronger for small firms.<sup>14</sup>

# **5. Conclusions**

In this paper, we investigate the impact of the introduction of collateral registries for movable assets on firms’ access to finance. Despite strong theoretical arguments that suggest that the introduction of such registries should improve access to finance, there is no prior evidence that systematically demonstrates that such reforms indeed accomplish their goals.

We find that in countries that have introduced registries for movable collateral firms indeed experience increased access to bank finance, as well as declines in interest rates and extensions in loan maturity. We find that this impact is economically significant given that the number of firms with access to finance increases by about 8 percent, on average. Our methodology and robustness tests allow us to isolate the impact of registry reform from all other relevant country characteristics and time effects. In addition, we show that introducing a new registry for movable collateral has stronger benefits for small firms, which are often more constrained in their access to finance and do not have many fixed assets that can serve as collateral.

Our paper provides the first rigorous evidence to suggest that introducing a registry for movable collateral has important benefits for firms’ access to finance. This evidence has clear policy implications and may add weight to otherwise pervasive theoretical arguments that

> 14 These results are available upon request.

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suggest that collateral registries can reduce information asymmetries between borrowers and lenders and improve access to finance.

One limitation of the paper is our relatively small sample of reformers, since we only have seven countries that introduced registries for movable collateral for which we are able to obtain pre and post reform data. Given the small sample of reformers, we are forced to treat all reforms homogenously, but as argued by Alvarez de la Campa et al. (2012) not all registries operate in the same way (e.g., some are less flexible in terms of the procedures to register assets, some charge higher fees than others, etc.). Surely, differences in the way registries operate might affect the extent to which the introduction of a registry increases access to finance. As more countries introduce collateral registries for movable assets and more firm surveys post reform become available, it will be important to further test the robustness of our results and to examine how differences in the functioning of collateral registries for movable assets affect their impact on access to finance.

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