Vos
Bell & Vos , "The Happy Story Told by SME Capital Struture"
Bell & Vos , "The Happy Story Told by SME Capital Struture"
2010. A very unconventional approach.
Abstract: The determinants of SME capital structure are re-examined, motivated by the assertion that SMEs’
access to finance is not a binding constraint since most SMEs seek contentment (or, happiness) not
growth (Vos, et al (2007)). We argue that ‘contentment theory’ (or, the ‘happy story’), provides a
better theoretical and empirical description of SME capital structure behaviour than does pecking
order theory. Characteristic variables (eg. age, gender) help generate a sketch of an SME capital
structure life-cycle which is in sharp contrast to ‘finance gap’ presumptions (Berger and Udell (1998))
or informational asymmetry arguments (Myers and Majluf, (1984)).