The Relationship between the Risk of a Change of the Interest Rate and the Age of Entrepreneurs among Slovak SMEs

Abstract

Young entrepreneurs and start-up founders are considered to be a drivers of innovation which is an important element of knowledge economy and competitiveness of each country. But their early age could be perceived as a factor causing the increasing impact of the credit risk because young entrepreneurs usually have a short company history, weak capital power and a lack of the guarantees. The main objective of this paper is to bring scientific evidence that the age of the entrepreneur should be considered as a factor with the significant impact on one part of the credit risk of a company– the risk of a change of the interest rate. The research was carried out among 438 Slovak companies in 2016. Based on Pearson´s chi-square analysis of the results of our research, we bring statistical evidence that age has a significant impact on the ability of the company to protect the firm against the change of the interest rate. We also found out that there is dependence between the age of the owner and the opinion that SMEs in the other EU countries have better loan conditions, especially lower interest rates, than Slovak SMEs. Research findings indicate that young entrepreneurs have problems with obtaining capital and increasing interest rates and collaterals because of their higher risk profile. But effective state support of young and innovative companies through venture financing can lead to increasing global competitiveness of the Slovak Republic.

Keywords

• young entrepreneurs
• venture firms
• start-up
• SMEs
• credit risk
• interest rate risk