Figure 1.
Expected mean values of selected financial ratios for construction industry compared with other industries.
Note: BKL, short-term bank loan to assets ratio; D/A, total debt to assets ratio; LTD, long-term debt to assets ratio; STD, short term debt to assets ratio. Vertical bars represent 0.95 confidence intervals.
Source: Authors’ calculations based on [BACH, 2023].
Table 1.
Definition of variables employed in the analysis
| Variable character | Symbol | Specification | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dependent | NTC | Net trade credit = (Accounts receivable – Accounts payable)/Assets | |
| REC | Trade credit supplied = Accounts receivable/Assets | ||
| PAY | Trade credit obtained = Accounts payable/Assets | ||
| Explanatory | BKL | Short-term bank loan = Current amounts owed to credit institutions/Assets | |
| COL | Collateral = Fixed assets/Assets | ||
| INV | Inventory = Inventories/Assets | ||
| Firm-specific financial ratios | CSH | Cash at hand = Cash and available bank amounts/Assets | |
| CGS | Costs of goods sold = Costs of goods sold, materials and consumables/Net turnover | ||
| LEV | Debt ratio = Debt/Equity | ||
| ROA | Return on assets = Net operating profit/Assets | ||
| TAT | Total asset turnover = Net turnover/Assets | ||
| Dummy variables | SIZE | Size groups of firms (S, M, L) | |
| CT | Countries (AT, BE, CZ, DE, ES, FR, HR, IT, LU, PL, PT, SK) | ||
| YEAR | Years (2000, …, 2020) | ||
Figure 2.
Mean values of trade credit ratios in the construction industry across countries.
Note: The mean values are calculated for all size groups of construction firms (S, M, L) and for all years available for a given region or country in the period 2000–2020.
Source: Authors’ calculations based on [BACH, 2023].
Table 2.
One-way ANOVA results with the grouping factor as the classification of country as the CEE or WE EU member; values of F statistics and p-value are in parentheses
| Size | Dependent variable | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| NTC | REC | PAY | |
| Small | 2.823 (0.094) | 1.626 (0.204) | 0.144 (0.704) |
| Medium | 1.676 (0.197) | 1.252 (0.264) | 0.341 (0.560) |
| Large | 5.932 (0.016) | 1.586 (0.209) | 17.84 (0.000) |
| All size groups | 2.432 (0.119) | 0.161 (0.688) | 3.184 (0.075) |
1 Source: Authors’ calculations based on [BACH, 2023].
Table 3.
Estimation results of panel regressions for construction industry in CEE countries
| Variable | Model (1a) NTC | Model (1b) RECa | Model (1c) PAY | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Estimate | Std. error | Estimate | Std. error | Estimate | Std. error | |
| Const. | 0.243*** | 0.039 | 0.550*** | 0.110 | 0.178*** | 0.020 |
| COL | –0.272*** | 0.048 | –0.537*** | 0.076 | –0.217*** | 0.019 |
| INV | –0.349*** | 0.056 | –0.421*** | 0.082 | ||
| CSH | –0.423** | 0.203 | –0.284*** | 0.081 | ||
| CGS | –0.077*** | 0.028 | ||||
| LEV | –0.094* | 0.053 | ||||
| ROA | 0.091** | 0.040 | ||||
| TAT | –0.049*** | 0.010 | 0.046** | 0.023 | 0.080*** | 0.007 |
| SIZE | No | No | S*** | |||
| CT | SK* | No | HR***, SK* | |||
| YEAR | 2016*** | 2012* | 2017* | |||
| No. obs. | 210 | 210 | 210 | |||
| R2 | 0.535 | n/a | 0.871 | |||
| AIC | –806.5 | –722.2 | –918.4 | |||
| Panel specification tests | ||||||
| Joint sign. of diff. group means | F(11, 193) = 2.8 [0.002] | F(11, 195) = 4.1 [0.000] | F(11, 195) = 6.0 [0.000] | |||
| Breusch-Pagan | LM = 4.7 [0.030] | LM = 25.3 [0.000] | LM = 55.9 [0.000] | |||
| Hausman test | H = 15.4 [0.009] | 5.5 [0.137] | 8.6 [0.035] | |||
| Joint significance robust F test | ||||||
| Size | n/a | n/a | 41.0 [0.000] | |||
| Country | 3.74 [0.079] | n/a | 8.6 [0.006] | |||
| Year | 12.67 [0.004] | 4.3 [0.000] | 3.2 [0.100] | |||
1 AIC, Akaike Information Criterion; CEE, Central-Eastern Europe; FE, fixed-effects; LM, Lagrange Multiplier; RE, random-effects; ROA, return on assets.
1a The model was Estimated as RE, otherwise as FE. Interpretation of parameters in relation to medium firms and the Czech Republic.
1 Note: For dummy variables, only the items in terms of specific size groups, countries, and years were provided for which the parameters were statistically significant.
1 Source: Authors’ calculations based on [BACH, 2023].
Table 4.
Estimation results of panel regressions for the construction industry in WE countries
| Variable | Model (1a) NTCa | Model (1b) REC | Model (1c) PAY | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Estimate | Std. error | Estimate | Std. error | Estimate | Std. error | |
| Const. | 0.249*** | 0.044 | 0.447*** | 0.035 | 0.175*** | 0.021 |
| BKL | 0.279** | 0.120 | ||||
| COL | –0.320*** | 0.030 | –0.532*** | 0.038 | –0.214*** | 0.024 |
| INV | –0.341*** | 0.046 | –0.404*** | 0.038 | –0.112*** | 0.032 |
| CSH | –0.411*** | 0.103 | –0.214*** | 0.069 | ||
| CGS | –0.047** | 0.019 | 0.066*** | 0.012 | ||
| ROA | 0.250** | 0.103 | ||||
| TAT | –0.037*** | 0.011 | 0.047*** | 0.011 | 0.067*** | 0.007 |
| SIZE | S*, L* | S*** | S*** | |||
| CT | No | PT*** | LU** | |||
| YEAR | 2001*, 2010* | 2016** | No | |||
| No. obs. | 480 | 480 | 480 | |||
| R2 | n/a | 0.834 | 0.809 | |||
| AIC | –1876.2 | –1777.5 | –2066.1 | |||
| Panel specification tests | ||||||
| Joint sign. of diff. group means | F(23, 451) = 1.9 [0.008] | F(23, 451) = 7.4 [0.000] | F(23, 451) = 12.5 [0.000] | |||
| Breusch-Pagan | LM = 7.1 [0.008] | LM = 183.0 [0.000] | LM = 393.4 [0.000] | |||
| Hausman test | 1.6 [0.895] | 18.5 [0.001] | 30.5 [0.000] | |||
| Joint significance robust F test | ||||||
| Size | 1.6 [0.208] | 99.3 [0.000] | 41.0 [0.000] | |||
| Country | 8.7 [0.000] | 8.4 [0.008] | 8.6 [0.006] | |||
| Year | 46.0 [0.000] | 5.3 [0.030] | 30.5 [0.000] | |||
1a The model was Estimated as RE, otherwise as FE. Interpretation of parameters in relation to medium firms and Austria.
1 Note: For dummy variables, only the items in terms of specific size groups, countries, and years were provided for which the parameters were statistically significant.
1 Source: Authors’ calculations based on [BACH, 2023].