由於金融機構與借款人之間存在資訊不對稱的現象，為了避免逆選擇與道德危險，金融機構會要求借款人提供足夠的擔保品。然而中小企業普遍缺乏擔保品，因此存在融資困難與財務結構不健全的嚴重問題。本文實證結果發現，中小企業因為無法從金融體系籌足所需的資金，只好向股東借款。而股東借款比率越高，代表融資困難程度越大，且導致經營績效低落。亦即中小企業財務結構越不健全，將使其經營績效越差。如果中小企業能夠利用長期負債與權益資金來代替短期負債，則可改善財務結構。而財務結的改善程度越大，則經營績效增加幅度也越大。有利用財務結構與經營績效來區別由中小企業與大型企業，發中小企業具有「財務結構不健全與經營績效較差」的特性。 基於實證結果，本文提出「誘因型融資契約」作為中小企業放款與保證契約的參考。契約內容為貸款初期的階段僅要求一較低的利率，而在一定期間之後則可要求某一定比率的股權或盈餘，以提供較高的風險溢酬。誘因型契約可以減少金融機構所承擔的風險。

　　　　　In order to mitigate the adverse selection and moral hazard resulting from the information asymmetry between financial institutions and borrowers, the financial institutions often required enough collateral from the borrowers. The inability of providing enough collateral for the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) creates the severe problems of financial difficulty and unfavorable financial structure. Due to the difficulty of raising capital from the financial institutions, the empirical results discover the SEMs highly rely on the borrowing form their owners and further deteriorate their financial structure and the performance. This paper proposes the SMEs can improve their financial structure and further improve their performance through raising equity and long-term debt in stead of short-term debt. This study proposes the incentive-base financing contract (IBFC) as a vehicle for the SEMs to overcome this financing problem. The IBFC’s low initial interest cost mitigates the financial difficulty for the borrower. It also provides the lender with stronger incentive to assist the borrower to establish adequate accounting information system to improve business operation and also to provide relatable financial information reducing information asymmetry. The lender’s risk of offering lower interest rate and possible loss is compensated with profit sharing and equity participation, which is indeed a swap of fixed income for equity return.