Interenterprise Arrears in Transforming Economies: The Case of Romania

Inter-enterprise arrears in economies in transition

“…Romania, together with Russia, is the country in which inter-enterprise arrears have been at center stage after the launching of the reform program in 1991 (Clifton and Khan (1992)). Targets on arrears have even featured in the conditionality of IMF and World Bank programs.…”

Passive Creditors*

“…3 Interenterprise arrears (that is involuntary trade credit) have emerged in all countries concerned (see Rostowski 1994). Some countries have faced rapid accumulation of interlocking webs of arrears that on some occasions triggered collective bailouts by the government, as for example in Poland (see Rostowski 1994), Romania (Clifton and Khan 1993;Daianu 1994) or Russia (Ickes and Rytermann 1992) during early transition. Perotti (1998) describes how firms can collude and rationally extend trade credit that is not likely to be repaid if they expect to be bailed out by a government unwilling to accept the demise of good firms linked by arrears to bad firms.…”

La transition vers le capitalisme en Europe centrale et orientale. Transformations structurelles et intégration au marché mondial

“…Mais l'essentiel de ces crédits correspond à des non-paiements uni l a t é r a l e me n t décidés par les débiteur s face à un en v i r o n n e m e n t transformé où les conditions d'accès au crédit se sont durcies. Cette pratique aboutit à réduire l'efficacité de la politique monétaire [1]. La première étape de la transition a donc permis la rup ture avec l'économie bureaucratique mais n'a pas mis en place des économies de marché du type de celles de l'OCDE.…”