Credit Tightening and the Bank Credit–Alternative Finance Relationship: Evidence from EU-27 SMEs

This dataset contains raw country-year data compiled from the Survey on the Access to Finance of Enterprises (SAFE) for EU-27 countries over 2014–2024. The data were organised to support the article “Credit Tightening and the Bank Credit–Alternative Finance Relationship: Evidence from EU-27 SMEs.” The file includes SAFE-based measures of SME financing use, credit conditions, application behaviour, and access-to-finance perceptions. These variables are used to calculate bank loan use, alternative finance use, and the components of the Credit Tightening Index (CTI). Alternative finance is based on SAFE’s “other types of financing” category, covering shareholder loans, subsidised loans, crowdfunding, and peer-to-peer lending. The dataset is provided for transparency and replication purposes. It reflects SAFE-based country-year survey data and should not be interpreted as firm-level microdata.