Public Policies and Venture Capital in Supporting SMEs: An Economic Comparison of Available Instruments

摘要

Even though the cost of money is relatively low in the present economic environment, it is nonetheless possible that small- and medium-sized enterprises may be hit by increased spread due to the greater risk of insolvency in the loan portfolio. In order to break the deadlock in relations between banks and businesses, confidence must be won back and a climate of mutual trust among players (banks, venture capital funds, credit guarantee bodies, and businesses) must be found again. Although its operating policy partly differs from that of investing in non-mutual institutions, venture capital has shown itself to be - at least, potentially - an equally efficacious solution for increasing the amount of credit available to small and medium enterprises.