Executives' horizon and trade credit

Abstract

Using executives' decision horizon as a measure of internal governance, this study examines the association between customer's internal governance and supplier's extension of trade credit. Suppliers may extend more trade credit to customers with strong internal governance because of their lower operational risk, higher firm performance, and better information environment. However, firms with better internal governance may have easier access to other sources of financing, and thus may need less trade credit. Using a sample of US listed firms between 1992 and 2021, we find that suppliers extend more trade credit to customers with strong internal governance. We also find that the association between internal governance and trade credit is more pronounced for financially, and informationally constrained firms. Our results are robust to alternative measures and specifications. Incremental to prior studies, we show that effectiveness of customers' internal governance affects suppliers' lending decisions.