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# Credit Management Research Centre

Independent research on credit, risk, business finance and policy

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](https://cmrc.co.uk/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Posts

- [News](https://cmrc.co.uk/news/) - CMRC undertakes practitioner and policy relevant research. Here you can find our latest papers, reports and press releases
- [When Do Boards Matter in Entrepreneurial Firms?](https://cmrc.co.uk/when-do-boards-matter-in-entrepreneurial-firms/) - The paper develops a framework for empirical work on UK limited companies (SME's). It is grounded in a population-level panel database built over more than three decades, covering the UK company population and now comprising around 60 million company-year observations.The argument is that boards matter when their capabilities fit the firm’s ownership structure, financing regime
- [Default and Fraud in Guaranteed Loans](https://cmrc.co.uk/default-fraud-classification-and-lender-heterogeneity/) - This paper studies default outcomes and fraud classification in UK COVID-19 government-guaranteed lending using loan-level data on 1,107,934 limited-company facilities under the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) and the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS). Combining logit models, Cox proportional hazards, and accelerated failure time specifications with propensity-score matching, entropy balancing, and external validation against
- [Equity Finance and the UK Regions](https://cmrc.co.uk/equity-finance-and-the-uk-regions/) - The UK equity finance market has grown significantly, with £145.3bn invested across 25,002 companies from 2011 to 2025. ​ However, regional disparities persist, with London dominating 47% of deals and 57% of investment value, while regions like the Midlands and Northern Ireland remain underrepresented. ​ Post-2022, the market has shifted to fewer but larger deals, with average
- [Who Gets Private Debt? New Evidence from Italy](https://cmrc.co.uk/who-gets-private-debt-new-evidence-from-italy/) - Private debt has emerged as an increasingly important source of corporate financing, yet we know surprisingly little about which firms actually receive it. This study provides the first large-scale analysis of firm-level determinants of private debt financing, drawing on a unique dataset that merges over ten million Italian company-year observations with proprietary data on 373
- [The Performance of Private Equity Portfolio Companies During the COVID-19 Pandemic](https://cmrc.co.uk/the-performance-of-private-equity-portfolio-companies-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/) - Dr Paul Lavery (Glasgow University), Prof Nick Wilson: We study the performance of PE-backed companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings suggest that PE-backed firms' sales, employment, and earnings were more resilient compared to closely matched industry peers during the pandemic. These effects are found to be insignificant among firms which were the most vulnerable
- [Growth Finance for Business](https://cmrc.co.uk/hello-world-2/) - Professor Nick Wilson and Dr Marek Kacer's research on regional equity finance gaps has been included in the 2023 Autumn Statement. The team have been working with the Department of Business and Trade and HM Treasury on a policy modelling ahead of the statement. Their research analyses the financing requirements of potential high-growth businesses in
- [Innovation funding and company performance](https://cmrc.co.uk/innovation-funding-and-company-performance/) - This report analyses over 59,000 UK grants from Innovate UK awarded between 2005 and 2023, focusing on the impact of funding on over 14,000 companies.The findings show that companies with Innovate UK funding, when compared to those without such funding, gradually innovate more, grow more, and attract more equity funding. For instance, companies funded by
- [Defaults on government guaranteed loans by potential high growth firms: Evidence from the COVID-19 period](https://cmrc.co.uk/defaults-on-government-guaranteed-loans-by-potential-high-growth-firms-evidence-from-the-covid-19-period/) - Our Economics Letters paper https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2024.111941 on equity funded firms is now available online. This paper with and looks at the use of guaranteed loans by potential high growth firms during the Covid period. Equity financing serves as a crucial mechanism for supporting innovative and growth-oriented enterprises, particularly because of its resilience during economic downturns and the
- [Private equity portfolio firm performance in periods of crisis](https://cmrc.co.uk/private-equity-portfolio-firm-performance-in-periods-of-crisis/) - Our recently published study with Dr Paul Lavery in the Journal of Corporate Finance https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102641 investigates the performance of private equity (PE)-backed companies during the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing their greater resilience compared to closely matched industry counterparts. However, the superior performance was less pronounced than in the pre-pandemic period, suggesting that outperformance is due to investors' initial
- [Exit Routes, Equity Investors and Crisis](https://cmrc.co.uk/exit-routes-equity-investors-and-crisis/) - Our recent paper on entrepreneurial finance is published in Economics Letters. Our results corroborate the hypothesis that investor involvement through oversight and imparting expertise augments the likelihood of favourable outcomes. This is particularly evident in high technology sectors. We observe increased exit activity amidst the crisis and notable disparities, contingent upon investor type, concerning chosen
- [What's driving UK Under-investment ?](https://cmrc.co.uk/whats-driving-uk-under-investment/) - Research Paper The Productivity Puzzle. What's Driving UK Under-Investment? Our recently published paper (with Marc Cowling) in the British Journal of Management analyses firm financing and investment decisions. There is a significant knowledge gap regarding small owner-managed firms that rely primarily on internal financing and bank debt for investment. Our study fills this gap by analysing a
- [Private Equity and Firm Productivity](https://cmrc.co.uk/private-equity-and-firm-productivity/) - Executive Summary Private equity (PE), since the 1980s, has become a significant player in corporate acquisition and restructuring in the UK and globally. In the UK, PE plays and important role by providing funding and expertise for businesses at various stages of their growth cycle. In doing so PE can help to fuel entrepreneurship, drive
- [Trends in Equity Finance Investments](https://cmrc.co.uk/trends-in-equity-finance-investments/) - Our recent report describes trends in equity finance deals in the UK in the period from 2011 to Q3 2023. The health of the equity finance ecosystem is of vital importance for development of the innovative enterprises that drive economic growth, employment, and the international competitiveness of the UK economy. The significant drop of the overall

## Pages

- [Home](https://cmrc.co.uk/) - The Credit Management Research Centre (CMRC) is an independent research centre specialising in credit risk, business finance, and financial system analysis. The Centre produces data-driven research designed to inform policy, improve lending practice, and deepen understanding of how financial markets operate in practice. CMRC’s work combines large-scale empirical analysis with applied econometric methods, focusing on
- [Publications](https://cmrc.co.uk/publications-reports/) - Our academic papers, working papers and reports are listed here with download links Recently Published Papers Cowling M; Wilson N; Liu W; Yang H 2026. How Do Businesses Finance New Investment? Manchester School, 94, (3), pp. 278-295 Cowling M, Liu W, Yang H, Wilson N. 2025. Loan size concentration under the UK Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme and SME access to Finance. Journal of Small
- [Research](https://cmrc.co.uk/research-projects/) - Current Research Projects CMRC’s current research programme spans access to finance, credit risk, firm performance, and the design and evaluation of financial policy. The work is grounded in large-scale empirical analysis and focuses on questions of direct relevance to policymakers, financial institutions, and the wider business community. A central strand examines how constraints on access
- [Impact](https://cmrc.co.uk/impact/) - Impact CMRC works with business, government, and financial institutions to generate evidence that informs practice and shapes policy. The Centre’s impact is grounded in rigorous empirical research applied to real-world financial systems, with outputs used to support decision-making in areas including credit risk, business finance, and economic policy. Financial Innovation and Credit Risk Practice CMRC
- [About CMRC](https://cmrc.co.uk/about-cmrc/) - About the Credit Management Research Centre (CMRC) The Credit Management Research Centre (CMRC) is an independent research centre specialising in credit risk, business finance, and financial system analysis. The Centre produces rigorous, data-driven research designed to inform public policy, support financial institutions, and improve the practice of lending and credit management. CMRC operates at the
- [Privacy Policy](https://cmrc.co.uk/privacy-policy/) - Who we are Our website address is: https://cmrc.co.uk. Comments When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided
- [Contact](https://cmrc.co.uk/contact/) - This contact form is created using Everest Forms.

## Categories

- [Venture Capital](https://cmrc.co.uk/category/venture-capital/) - Research in Venture Capital Investment
- [SME Finance](https://cmrc.co.uk/category/sme-finance/) - Finance for Small and Growing Business
- [Credit Management Research Centre](https://cmrc.co.uk/category/credit-management-research-centre/) - CMRC
- [Research](https://cmrc.co.uk/category/research/) - Research Papers and Reports