Does the level of societal secrecy aggravate or alleviate access to finance? We explore this question for 51,249 firms in 39, predominantly developing, countries, from 2006 to 2015. We find a strong positive relationship between cultural orientation towards secrecy in a country and financial constraints faced by its firms. Our results ...
Does the level of societal secrecy aggravate or alleviate access to finance? We explore this question for 51,249 firms in 39, predominantly developing, countries, from 2006 to 2015. We find a strong positive relationship between cultural orientation towards secrecy in a country and financial constraints faced by its firms. Our results are robust to several considerations and emphasize the adverse consequence of societal secrecy for perpetuating financing obstacles for firms.
