We explore the importance of financial information of counterparty firms in supply chain
relations. Exploiting the implementation of electronic business registers in European countries that
significantly increased the accessibility of private fims’ financial information, we find that more
accessible financial information is relevant to supply chain relationships in an asymmetric way: it
tends to have a larger impact when the financial information is customer-related than when it is
supplier-related. We also find that the timing in which the financial information becomes available is
important to its effect on the stability of supply chain relations. Information that is available before
the supply chain relations have started contributes to the stability of the relations in line with a better selection of supply chain partners, while information that becomes available after relations have started tends to destabilize the existing relations. Overall, our results highlight the differential
importance of financial information to suppliers and customers and the importance of timing of
information accessibility in the supply chain.