Access to Credit, Exports, and Product Quality

Seminar summary

We show that access to credit is a key barrier in the production and export of high quality goods. We analyze a credit support scheme in Portugal that provided government guarantees on loans to small and medium-sized enterprises. Regression discontinuity estimates based on program eligibility criteria indicate that qualifying firms expanded export activity on both the intensive and extensive margins and increased the quality of exported goods. Panel regressions focusing on a handful of vertically differentiated goods—wine, cork, and olive oil—indicate a similar impact on quality. Our results highlight an understudied mechanism linking financial and economic development.

How to join this seminar

This seminar will take place online on Wednesday 8 November at 2pm.

It is free to attend with no need to register in advance.

Speaker bio

Claudia Custodio

Claudia Custodio is an Associate Professor of Finance at Imperial College. She was awarded her PhD from the London School of Economics in 2010, where she was affiliated with the Financial Markets Group (FMG). She is now a research associate at the FMG and ECGI. She is also a CEPR research fellow. After graduating Claudia spent time in the US working within the Department of Finance at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University before moving back to her native Lisbon to join NOVA school of Business and Economics. Claudia’s research focus is Corporate Finance and her work has been published several times in academic journals such as the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics and the Review of Financial Studies. In 2019 she was awarded an ERC starting grant to study the impact of financial constraints of small firms on firm growth.