Grit S. Becker and Oliver Everling (Editor): Rating Accounts Receivable: Correctly assess the creditworthiness of business partners, Gabler publishing house – Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, http://www.gabler.de/, 1st edition, Wiesbaden 2010, 233 pages, ISBN 978 -3-8349-2070-6.

The financial and economic crisis presents politicians with unprecedented challenges of unprecedented scope. The globalization of financial markets and the internationalization of financial relations have reached a level that not only politicians, but also the business community is confronted with unexpected questions and the task of finding new approaches for the identification and management of risks.

While once in national economies with manageable external relations the risks were identifiable and manageable, which result from crisis-driven developments abroad, there is no way of recognizing that even small and medium-sized enterprises can be affected by undesirable developments in other markets even if, as the crisis has shown since 2007, they are starting in segments that initially appear to be as limited as the so-called subprime markets in the USA.

In times of economic improvement, Germany also failed to pursue fiscal consolidation geared towards fiscal consolidation. At the same time, the fiscal conditions for SMEs have not improved over many years. The result is low equity ratios in international comparison. The strengthening of the self-financing capacity of small and medium-sized enterprises is slow due to the currently limited scope for fiscal policy, since first of all crisis management and capping of new debt must be in the foreground. Despite the progress already made in terms of average capital ratios in SMEs, all measures and instruments that are aimed at strengthening the resilience of the economy in times of crisis are important.

Grit S. Becker und Oliver Everling (Herausgeber): Debitorenrating: Bonität von Geschäftspartnern richtig einschätzen, Gabler Verlag – Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, http://www.gabler.de/, 1. Auflage, Wiesbaden 2010, 233 Seiten, ISBN 978-3-8349-2070-6.