Labor unemployment insurance and bank loans

Yi Shen

Journal of Corporate Finance, 2022, vol. 76, issue C

Abstract: I investigate the influence of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits on the cost of bank loans by exploiting changes in state unemployment insurance laws as a source of variation in labor unemployment costs. The evidence shows that the cost of bank loans is significantly lower for firms headquartered in states with more generous UI programs. The relation between UI benefits and the cost of bank loans is more pronounced for firms that face higher unionization rates, are more labor intensive, or have a higher layoff propensity. These results are robust to controlling for loan characteristics, macroeconomic conditions, and borrower characteristics and using fixed effect regressions. I also find further evidence of a causal relation between UI benefits and the cost of bank loans through a difference-in-differences (DID) approach. Overall, the results suggest that the credit market evaluates workers' unemployment costs while approving and pricing loan contracts.

Keywords: Unemployment insurance benefits; Cost of bank loans; Compensating wage differentials (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:corfin:v:76:y:2022:i:c:s0929119922000979

DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2022.102254

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