Title: Financing structure of the corporate investments in the Bulgarian economy – state-of-the-art and potential development

Authors: Kamelia Assenova; Matteo Rossi; László Koloszár; Giuseppe Festa

Addresses: Department of Economics, University of National and World Economy, Sofia, Bulgaria ' Department of Law Economics Management and Quantitative Methods, University of Sannio, Benevento, Italy; Wyzsza Szkoła Bankowa w Poznaniu (WSB University), 61-895, Poznan, Poland ' Faculty of Economics, University of Sopron, Hungary ' Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Salerno, Italy

Abstract: Significant and stable economic growth has been the main goal of Bulgarian economic policy in recent years. However, the Bulgarian financial market still seems undersized, and the relationship between bank lending and other capital supply, with the absence of the latter (although with a few exceptions), is one of the primary reasons for companies (especially small and medium enterprises – SMEs) to borrow credits from the banking system. Scarce access to forms of capital other than lending makes Bulgarian SMEs extremely dependent on the actions of banks, especially considering that most companies in Bulgaria are on these sizes. Our statistical investigation has Bulgarian economy in the period from 2008 to 2019, making necessary the development of additional and alternative financing forms and potentially even considering the opportunities emerging from the Next Generation EU Program.

Keywords: Bulgaria; small and medium enterprises; SMEs; bank credits; bank loans; financial market; bond market; equity market; alternative financing; Next Generation EU.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMFA.2022.123896

International Journal of Managerial and Financial Accounting, 2022 Vol.14 No.3, pp.236 - 246

Received: 05 Oct 2021
Accepted: 01 Feb 2022
Published online: 04 Jul 2022 *

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