Assessment of the impact of bank lending on business entities’ performance using structural equation modeling

Abstract

The paper aims to assess the influence of bank lending on the performance of enterprises in the real sector. The relevance of the study for different countries, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine, is shown. Structural equation modeling of the impact of bank lending on the performance of enterprises in the real sector is carried out using Ukraine as an example. Six key indicators of real sector enterprises’ performance for the period of 2007–2019 were selected as an information basis of the study. To assess the abovementioned impact, structural equation modeling was used, i.e., the Statistica program was selected as a software tool to evaluate the resulting model’s adequacy and determine the level of statistical significance of its parameters. The obtained results prove that the business lending sector in Ukraine has significant potential for its development, which ultimately will have a positive effect on the efficiency of the real sector enterprises. Moreover, adopting a balanced state policy in the sector of corporate bank lending can give impetus to the development of the domestic sector of real production and help Ukrainian enterprises overcome the crisis caused by COVID-19.