Working Paper Series: Special Edition of 2016 to 2018 Interns

one for taxes and the other for the bank. Further, type of industry was also found to be an important determinant to accessing credit with services and other manufacturing having higher probability.

Afsana et al. (2015) analyses data from a private and public bank in Bangladesh. Findings revealed that when it comes to SME financing, both bankers and SMEs encountered problems. High interest rates, high collateral requisite, and issues with the valuation of collateral were among the problems SMEs faced. Whereas, poor credit history, non-profitable ventures, inadequate guarantee and inability to generate cash flows, inexperienced management and improper record keeping by the SMEs were among some of the problems that bankers faced. Holton et al. (2012) discovered that the real economy proxied by GDP growth was found to affect demand for credit through a supply spillover effect. Decreases in GDP were found to be strongly associated with the likelihood of credit being rejected. Using a multiple regression model Jenkins & Hussain (2014) analyses the macroeconomic conditions required for SME lending on the Turkish economy. Results from the multiple regression analysis were in favor of the hypothesis that macroeconomic environment do have an impact on SME bank credit. More specifically, economic growth, economic stability and government borrowing were all found to have a significant impact on the expansion of bank credit. A positive relationship between SME bank credit and economic growth and stability was observed which is consistent in the literature. 3 Data & Sample Characteristics For this study firm level data based on the Productivity, Technology and Innovation (PROTEqIN) survey is used. 3 The survey spans a number of Caribbean countries namely Barbados, Belize, Jamaica, Guyana, Suriname, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, The Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago. The main objectives of the survey are to provide new and updated data from enterprises that were included in the previous World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) for the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region. The survey also provides indicators that are statistically significant across countries so that reliable inferences can be made. Lastly, is provides policy makers with new insights that are relevant to projects they may undertake.

3 The data was sourced from the Compete Caribbean website (http://competecaribbean.org/proteqin/).

16