Lower trade credit payment delays as a result of exclusion from tax deductible expenses

Arkadiusz Bernal; Anna Białek-Jaworska

doi:10.2478/ijme-2025-0020

Lower trade credit payment delays as a result of exclusion from tax deductible expenses

International Journal of Management and Economics

Volume 61 (2025): Issue 5 (December 2025)

By: Arkadiusz Bernal and Anna Białek-Jaworska

Open Access

|Dec 2025

Figures & Tables

Descriptive statistics of the DPO for the whole sample.

Medians of DPO in 2010–2015 by treated and untreated groups.

Table 1

Definition of variables.

Variable	Definition
	Dependent (explained) variable
DPO	The average DPO of a firm
DPO > 30 days	DPO longer than 30 days (subsample that contains only observations with DPO longer than 30 days)
ETR1	Effective tax rate = (income tax – deferred tax)/gross profit
ETR2	Effective tax rate = (income tax – deferred tax)/(gross profit + depreciation & amortisation)
ETR3	Effective tax rate = income tax/gross profit
ETR4	Effective tax rate = (income tax – deferred tax)/(gross profit + depreciation & amortisation), only for data retrieved from the Bisnode database
	where: deferred tax = ((deferred tax liabilities in t – deferred tax liabilities in a t − 1) – (assets for deferred income tax in t – assets for deferred income tax in a t − 1))
Test variable
Years_2013_2015	Dummy variable equals 1 in 2013, 2014 and 2015 year, and 0 otherwise
Control variables
SIZE	Firm size measured as ln(total assets)
LEV	Leverage = long-term debt/total assets
CAPINT	The capital intensity measured as tangible assets/total assets
NWC_TA	(current assets – current liabilities)/total assets
dummy_negative_NWC	Dummy variable equals 1 when NWC_TA is negative, and 0 otherwise
ROA	Return on assets ROA = gross profit/ total assets
For DID analysis
firm_DPO less than 30 days in 2012	Control dummy variable equals one if a DPO in 2012 was lower than 30 days and 0 otherwise
firm_DPO between 90 and 150 days in 2012	Dummy variable equals one if a DPO in 2012 was higher than 90 days and lower than 150 days, and 0 otherwise

Source: Author’s contribution.

Table 2

Comparison of the average DPO in 2012 and 2013.

Industry	Mean		t-test	p-value	N if DPO > 30
Industry	2012	2013	t-test	p-value	2012	2013
Total sample	79.84	56.50	−37.1225	0.0000	21,505	21,478
Manufacturing	69.83	50.67	−18.7757	0.0000	5,180	5,484
Energy, water supply	86.01	48.37	−8.7616	0.0000	510	553
Construction; mining	94.96	70.68	−11.1065	0.0000	2,714	2,526
Wholesale and retail trade	76.84	57.41	−19.3372	0.0000	7,092	7,068
Catering, culture & entertainment, other services	84.81	56.73	−5.2196	0.0000	403	329
Transport; ICT, real estate, scientific & technical activities	85.48	56.17	−20.5605	0.0000	5,329	5,241
Public administration; education; healthcare; NGOs	68.57	41.45	−5.8093	0.0000	277	277

Source: Author’s contribution.

Table 3

Comparison of the average DPO in 2015 and 2016.

Industry	Mean		t-test	p-value	N if DPO>30
Industry	2015	2016	t-test	p-value	2015	2016
Total sample	58.18	73.09	−22.5545	0.0000	15,224	18,006
Manufacturing	52.80	63.78	−10.6701	0.0000	3,956	4,593
Energy, water supply	50.75	66.89	−3.6967	0.0001	363	445
Construction; mining	64.71	89.97	−10.7411	0.0000	1,805	2,167
Wholesale and retail trade	58.14	70.15	−12.2819	0.0000	5,323	6,128
Catering, culture and entertainment, other services	60.13	78.44	−2.7465	0.0031	221	302
Transport; ICT, real estate; scientific & technical activities	62.24	79.81	−10.5875	0.0000	3,389	4,130
Public administration; education; healthcare; NGOs	47.40	241.0	−2.4718	0.0069	167	241

Source: Author’s contribution.

Table 4

Public policy change in 2013–2015 impact on DPO – DID model.

	Pooled OLS		FE		FE		FE
	DPO		DPO		DPO		DPO
	Coef.		Coef.		Coef.		Coef.
	(Std. Err.)		(Std. Err.)		(Std. Err.)		(Std. Err.)
DID	−8.2606	*******	−7.6617	*******	−7.4576	*******	−5.2356	*******
	(0.5497)		(0.4739)		(0.4699)		(0.4649)
Years_2013_2015	−0.7170	***	−0.6359	***	−0.4403	***	−0.3739	***
	(0.1685)		(0.1444)		(0.1433)		(0.1247)
Firm_DPO between 90	69.6898	***
and 150 days in 2012	(0.3371)
SIZE					9.3777	***	9.1770	***
					(0.1861)		(0.2156)
LEV					0.2104		4.4687	***
					(0.7007)		(0.9443)
CAPINT					−9.0475	***	−44.7629	***
					(0.6238)		(0.9222)
NWC_TA							−51.4319	***
							(0.7095)
dummy_negative_NWC							1.6215	***
							(0.3839)
dummy_negative_NWC#							17.2079	***
NWC_TA							(1.7268)
ROA							−6.9075	***
							(0.4584)
_cons	19.4264	***	25.8588	***	−115.2718	***	−94.0512	***
	(0.1021)		(0.0823)		(2.8401)		(3.4126)
Number of observations	176,876		176,876		176,876		126,859
Number of groups			27,521		27,521		22,427
Breuch–Pagan test	45963.40		31448.99		29796.13		28268.49
p-Value	0.000		0.000		0.000		0.000
Hausmann test			24.44		1367.96		1282.74
p-Value			0.000		0.000		0.000
R ²	0.2621		0.0024		0.0194		0.0940

Standard errors are given below the coefficients. Significance levels are ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, and *p < 0.1.

Source: Author’s contribution.

Table 5

Public policy change in 2013–2015 impact on ETR – DiD model.

	RE		RE		RE		FE
	ETR1		ETR2		ETR3		ETR4
	Coef.		Coef.		Coef.		Coef.
	(Std. Err.)		(Std. Err.)		(Std. Err.)		(Std. Err.)
DID	0.0102	*******	0.0083	*******	0.0098	*******	0.0111	*******
	(0.0019)		(0.0013)		(0.0018)		(0.0057)
Years_2013_2015	0.0062	***	0.0034	***	0.0075	***	0.0115	***
	(0.0006)		(0.0004)		(0.0006)		(0.0015)
Firm_DPO between 90	0.0174	***	0.0140	***	0.0176	***
and 150 days in 2012	(0.0025)		(0.0019)		(0.0024)
_cons	0.1521	***	0.1115	***	0.1570	***	0.1386	***
	(0.0008)		(0.0002)		(0.0003)		(0.0005)
Number of observations	176,876		176,876		176,876		28,091
Number of groups	27,521		27,521		27,521		8,380
Breuch–Pagan test	110,000		150,000		120,000		3,393.36
	0.000		0.000		0.000		0.000
Hausmann test	1.96		7.04		0.88		24.76
	0.3748		0.0296		0.6453		0.0000
R ²	0.0033		0.0036		0.0033		0.0030

Standard errors are given below the coefficients. Significance levels are ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, and *p < 0.1.

Source: Author’s contribution.

Table 6

Entities shortening the DPO between 2013 and 2015.

	Pooled OLS		RE		FE		FE
	Delta DPO		Delta DPO		Delta DPO		Delta DPO
	Coef.		Coef.		Coef.		Coef.
	(Std. Err.)		(Std. Err.)		(Std. Err.)		(Std. Err.)
ROA	−0.3381	***	−0.3360	***	−0.4296	***	−0.4522	***
	(0.0350)		(0.0365)		(0.0802)		(0.0801)
SIZE	0.0304	***	0.0320	***	0.1367	***	0.1472	***
	(0.0027)		(0.0030)		(0.0202)		(0.0203)
LEV	−0.2084	***	−0.2063	***			−0.3048	***
	(0.0340)		(0.0362)				(0.0802)
_cons	−0.8136	***	−0.8467	***	−2.4691	***	−2.6113	***
	(0.0426)		(0.0474)		(0.3152)		(0.3160)
Number of observations	3,619		3,619		3,619		3,619
Number of groups			2,117		2,117		2,117
Breuch–Pagan test	74.33		43.57		47.03		43.57
	0.000		0.000		0.000		0.000
Hausmann test			35.83		31.34		35.83
			0.000		0.000		0.000
R ²	0.070		0.078		0.052		0.057

Standard errors are given below the coefficients. Significance levels are ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, and *p < 0.1.

Source: Author’s contribution.

References

Authors

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Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ijme-2025-0020 | Journal eISSN: 2543-5361 (formerly 2299-9701) | Journal ISSN: 2299-9701

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Language: English

Page range: 42 - 55

Submitted on: Mar 11, 2024

Accepted on: May 5, 2025

Published on: Dec 31, 2025

Published by: SGH Warsaw School of Economics

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Publication frequency: 4 issues per year

Keywords:

JEL:

H25,

H32,

G32,

G38,

M41

Related subjects:

Business and economics,

Business management,

Management accounting, financial controlling, cost calculation, investment

© 2025 Arkadiusz Bernal, Anna Białek-Jaworska, published by SGH Warsaw School of Economics
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Volume 61 (2025): Issue 5 (December 2025)

Lower trade credit payment delays as a result of exclusion from tax deductible expenses

Figures & Tables

Figure 1

Figure 2

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

Table 4

Table 5

Table 6

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