Gambling banks and firm financing in transition economies

A transition from centrally-planned towards market-based economies in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) in the early 1990's, resulted in mass privatisation programmes and the transformation of the state-controlled banks, the main (and sometimes the only) financial intermediaries in those countries. Given the unique institutional background, the focus of this paper is upon answering the following two questions: First, whether, and if so how, the emerging financial structures of firms in transition economies differ from the structures in Western financial markets? Second, what are the factors that affect bank loan supply schedules in transition economies, and to what extent do they differ between the selected countries? Results from data sets for firms in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland suggest lower debt ratios than those reported for the G-7 countries.