Measuring access to finance represents an important challenge in empirical studies. Due to data limitations, perception‐based indicators or the usage of finance are often used as approximations of access to finance. However, these approximations disregard firm‐specific differences in the demand for finance. We derive a direct measure of access to credit from firm‐level survey data and explicitly model credit demand. We study the determinants of access to credit and disentangle, in contrast to other measures, their effects on demand for and access to credit. We find that the usage of credit is not a sufficient approximation, while perception‐based indicators are surprisingly precise.

中文翻译：

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获得信贷及其决定因素：基于调查的措施的比较

衡量获得金融服务的机会是实证研究中的一项重要挑战。由于数据的限制，基于感知的指标或财务使用通常被用作获取财务的近似值。但是，这些近似值忽略了企业特定的金融需求差异。我们从公司一级的调查数据中得出获取信贷的直接方法，并对信贷需求进行建模。与其他衡量指标相比，我们研究了获得信贷和解散的决定因素，它们对信贷需求和获得信贷的影响。我们发现信贷的使用还不够充分，而基于感知的指标却出奇的精确。