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This paper analyzes the influence of financial distress on the investment behavior of companies. The analysis includes companies from Germany, Canada, Spain, France, Italy, UK and USA, which cover a wide spectrum of different institutional environments. The methodology used is panel data estimation using the Generalized Method of Moments (System-GMM), thereby allowing control of both unobservable heterogeneity and the problems of endogeneity in explanatory variables. The results show that the influence of financial distress on investment is different according to the investment opportunities available to companies. So, companies in difficulties with fewer opportunities have the greatest propensity to under-invest, while firms in difficulties with better opportunities do not present different investment behavior than healthy companies.

This article empirically analyses the reasons for crises in microfinance institutions (MFIs), using a sample of 832 MFIs from 74 countries for the period 2003-2011. The methodology used is logit analysis with panel data. The main results show that both internal and external factors influence the probability of a crisis. We find different factors that reduce the likelihood of a crisis (company's performance, country's economic growth, political stability, and existence of a private credit bureau). On the other hand, excessive liquidity, a higher proportion of deposits over loans and more loans per employee all increase the probability of a crisis.

This article analyses how financial development affects the bank lending channel in developing countries. Our analysis is carried out on a sample of 693 commercial banks from 31 developing countries between 2000 and 2012. We find that the loan supply of banks that operate in countries with less

Research on social entrepreneurship (SE) has increased exponentially during the past decade. Even though this social phenomenon has aroused the interest of researchers, many aspects have not yet been fully studied. In this study, the goal is to analyze how the factors that define the behavior of social entrepreneurs are affected by the perception that they have about the development of the social enterprise sector (SES development). We perform an empirical multivariable analysis using 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data related to SE, with an international sample that contains information of 17,778 entrepreneurs, of which 6470 are social entrepreneurs. The empirical analysis is carried out applying binary response models, introducing interaction terms to analyze the moderating effect of SES development. Our results show that the entrepreneurs’ perception of the SES development exerts a moderating effect over three different groups of factors: 1) factors related to self-perception about entrepreneurship (including values, perceptions, and entrepreneurial skills); 2) demographic factors (gender, age, and education level), and 3) context and entrepreneurial environment (including factors related to entrepreneurs’ perception of societal values, entrepreneurship environment, and economic development). This moderating effect has very important implications, especially for policymakers. Our results show that SES development could amplify some effects, both positively and negatively. Therefore, the design and implementation of policies to support SE must consider the moderating role of this variable on the entrepreneurial behavior, because it could affect the effectiveness of such policies.