Cyclicality of Credit Supply: Firm Level Evidence

Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina

No 17392, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Theory predicts that there is a close link between bank credit supply and the evolution of the business cycle. Yet fluctuations in bank-loan supply have been hard to quantify in the time-series. While loan issuance falls in recessions, it is not clear if this is due to demand or supply. We address this question by studying firms' substitution between bank debt and non-bank debt (public bonds) using firm-level data. Any firm that raises new debt must have a positive demand for external funds. Conditional on issuance of new debt, we interpret firm's switching from loans to bonds as a contraction in bank credit supply. We find strong evidence of substitution from loans to bonds at times characterized by tight lending standards, high levels of non-performing loans and loan allowances, low bank share prices and tight monetary policy. The bank-to-bond substitution can only be measured for firms with access to bond markets. However, we show that this substitution behavior has strong predictive power for bank borrowing and investments by small, out-of-sample firms. We consider and reject several alternative explanations of our findings.

JEL-codes: E32 E44 G21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-bec, nep-cba and nep-mac
Note: CF
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

Published as Journal of Monetary Economics Available online 7 November 2013 In Press, Corrected Proof — Note to users Cover image Cyclicality of credit supply: Firm level evidence ☆ Bo Beckera, b, Victoria Ivashinaa, b,

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