This paper contributes to the financial life cycle literature by studying the effect of firm age on SMEs' debt policies, focusing for the first time on a multi-country context comprising 28 European countries. It also examines, in a novel way, whether this effect is influenced by periods of economic crisis, and in particular whether the global financial crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis shape SMEs' financial life cycles in comparison to pre- and post-crisis periods. Our pre-crisis findings show a high use of debt in the early stages of SMEs' life cycles, decreasing over time. During the crises we observe that the negative age/debt relationship becomes weaker and non-statistically significant compared to pre-crisis periods. After the crises we observe a gradual return to the pre-crisis pattern, to a lower extent for younger and more informationally opaque SMEs. Most notably, we interestingly find that the pre-, during and post-crisis patterns strongly differ according to level of financial development of the country in which a SME operates. Before and after crises, SMEs in more financially developed countries show a stronger tendency to reduce debt as they age thanks to better access to capital and lower information asymmetries. However, during crises this moderating effect disappears, revealing how even healthy financial systems can become ineffective under extreme stress. Our work highlights the significant role of banks and bank lending during difficult periods, suggesting that robust financial institutions play a key role in absorbing economic shocks and supporting SMEs' financial trajectories.

中文翻译：

---

欧洲中小企业在危机时期之前、期间和之后的财务生命周期。一个国家的金融体系的作用是什么？

本文通过研究企业年龄对中小企业债务政策的影响，首次关注由 28 个欧洲国家组成的多国背景，为金融生命周期文献做出了贡献。它还以一种新颖的方式研究了这种影响是否受到经济危机时期的影响，特别是与危机前后相比，全球金融危机和欧洲主权债务危机是否影响了中小企业的金融生命周期。我们在危机前的调查结果显示，在中小企业生命周期的早期阶段，债务使用率很高，并且随着时间的推移而减少。在危机期间，我们观察到，与危机前时期相比，负的年龄/债务关系变得更弱且不具有统计学意义。危机过后，我们观察到人们逐渐恢复到危机前的模式，年轻且信息更不透明的中小企业的程度较低。最值得注意的是，我们发现，根据中小企业经营所在国的金融发展水平，危机前、危机中和危机后的模式存在很大差异。在危机前后，由于获得资本的渠道较好和信息不对称性降低，金融较发达国家的中小企业表现出随着年龄的增长而减少债务的趋势。然而，在危机期间，这种调节作用会消失，这表明即使是健康的金融体系在极端压力下也会变得无效。我们的研究强调了银行和银行贷款在困难时期的重要作用，表明稳健的金融机构在吸收经济冲击和支持中小企业的财务轨迹方面发挥着关键作用。