Medium-sized Enterprises (MEs) are a limited number of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in EU-28 countries, but they contribute greatly to value added and employment. They are also key to pursuing sustainable local development in terms of green economic growth. Because trade credit is a crucial financial source for SMEs, this article investigates the importance of trade credit for Italian MEs, and particularly for ‘green’ MEs, rather than ‘non-green’ MEs. A panel analysis is applied to 101,250 observations over the period 2010–2019. We find that green MEs rely more on trade credit than non-green MEs. Moreover, trade credit is more important for younger, smaller, less profitable, and less liquid MEs. We further show that a substitution effect between trade and banking credit exists, and that the local development level affects the demand for trade credit. Our results demonstrate that trade credit supports sustainable development more than banking credit. Financial intermediaries should therefore include green parameters in the assessment of the creditworthiness of MEs, and policymakers should consider that trade credit and financial inclusion may be important in pursuing sustainable local development and economic growth.

中文翻译：

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贸易信贷是否是中型意大利绿色公司的可持续资源？

欧盟28国中的中小型企业（ME）数量有限，但它们对增值和就业做出了巨大贡献。它们也是实现绿色经济增长方面实现可持续地方发展的关键。由于贸易信贷是中小企业的重要财务来源，因此本文研究了贸易信贷对意大利中小企业的重要性，尤其是对“绿色”企业而不是“非绿色”企业的重要性。在2010-2019年期间，对101,250个观测值进行了面板分析。我们发现，绿色企业比非绿色企业更多地依赖贸易信贷。此外，贸易信贷对于年轻，规模较小，利润较低和流动性较小的新兴市场更为重要。我们进一步表明，贸易信贷和银行信贷之间存在替代效应，而且当地的发展水平会影响贸易信贷的需求。我们的结果表明，贸易信贷比银行信贷对可持续发展的支持更多。因此，金融中介机构应在评估中小企业的信誉时纳入绿色参数，决策者应考虑贸易信贷和金融包容性对于追求可持续的地方发展和经济增长可能很重要。