Credit Supply And Productivity Growth

We study the impact of bank credit on firm productivity. We exploit a matched firm-bank database covering all the credit relationships of Italian corporations, together with a natural experiment, to measure idiosyncratic supply-side shocks to credit availability and to estimate a production model augmented with financial frictions. We find that a contraction in credit supply causes a reduction of firm TFP growth and also harms IT-adoption, innovation, exporting, and adoption of superior management practices, while a credit expansion has limited impact. Quantitatively, the credit contraction between 2007 and 2009 accounts for about a quarter of observed the decline in TFP.

The Italian economy has been struggling with low productivity growth and bank balance sheet strains. This paper examines the implications for firm productivity of adverse shocks to bank lending in Italy, using a novel identification scheme and loan-level data on syndicated lending. We exploit the heterogeneous loan exposure of Italian banks to foreign borrowers in distress, and find that a negative shock to bank credit supply reduces firms' loan growth, investment, capital-to-labor ratio, and productivity. The transmission from changes in credit supply to firm productivity relates to labor market rigidities, which delay or distort the adjustment of firms' desired labor and capital allocations, and thereby reduce firms' productivity. Effects are stronger for firms with higher capital intensity and external financial dependence.

"Although it is widely accepted that financial development is associated with higher growth, the evidence on the channels through which credit affects growth on the micro-level is scant. Using data from a cross section of Bulgarian firms, the authors estimate the impact of access to credit (as proxied by indicators of whether firms have access to a credit or overdraft facility) on productivity. To overcome potential omitted variable bias of OLS estimates, they use information on firms' past growth to instrument for access to credit. The authors find credit to be positively and strongly associated with total factor productivity. These results are robust to a wide range of robustness checks. "--World Bank web site.

Despite robust deposit growth, credit growth has been sluggish in the Philippines. We attribute this to legacy weaknesses in bank balance sheets, consumption-led economic growth, and relatively high net interest margins. Bank-level analysis suggests that interest margins in the Philippines rise with bank size, bank capitalization, foreign ownership, overhead costs and tax rates. Using bank-level data for a number of Asian economies, we find that higher growth, lower inflation, higher reserve requirements, greater banking sector development, smaller stock market development and lower government deficits reduce net interest margins, informing the policy debate on strengthening financial intermediation in the Philippines.

We study the role of financial frictions in explaining the sharp and persistent productivity growth slowdown in advanced economies after the 2008 global financial crisis. Using a rich cross-country, firm-level data set and exploiting quasi-experimental variation in firm-level exposure to the crisis, we find that the combination of pre-existing firm-level financial fragilities and tightening credit conditions made an important contribution to the post-crisis productivity slowdown. Specifically: (i) firms that entered the crisis with weaker balance sheets experienced decline in total factor productivity growth relative to their less vulnerable counterparts after the crisis; (ii) this decline was larger for firms located in countries where credit conditions tightened more; (iii) financially fragile firms cut back on intangible capital investment compared to more resilient firms, which is one plausible way through which financial frictions undermined productivity. All of these effects are highly persistent and quantitatively large—possibly accounting on average for about a third of the post-crisis slowdown in within-firm total factor productivity growth. Furthermore, our results are not driven by more vulnerable firms being less productive or having experienced slower productivity growth before the crisis, or differing from less vulnerable firms along other dimensions.

Although it is widely accepted that financial development is associated with higher growth, the evidence on the channels through which credit affects growth on the micro-level is scant. Using data from a cross section of Bulgarian firms, the authors estimate the impact of access to credit (as proxied by indicators of whether firms have access to a credit or overdraft facility) on productivity. To overcome potential omitted variable bias of OLS estimates, they use information on firms' past growth to instrument for access to credit. The authors find credit to be positively and strongly associated with total factor productivity. These results are robust to a wide range of robustness checks.

swollen with deutschemarks and yen newly created to purchase unwanted dollars from the markets. When the Bundesbank and the Bank of Japan began to raise their interest rates to slow domestic monetary expansion, the fabric of international monetary cooperation began to unravel. Amid charge and counter-charge by disgruntled fmance ministers, the dollar dropped further and interest rates jumped upward, leading to panic in the stock market on Black Monday. Fortunately, a steady hand and generous supply of credit from the Federal Reserve System prevented massive bankruptcies among Wall Street brokerage houses and a collapse of the credit system. But the world-wide reverberations of the Wall Street crash exposed the underlying weaknesses of an economy based on foreign borrowing for all to see. Furthermore, the banking system is saddled with mountains of bad debts from the Third World and depressed parts of the American economy. A new Administration entering office in 1989 must deal with these problems, among others. Businesses and state and local governments need to know whether to focus their efforts on tax policy, investment, and improvements in education and worker training, or lobbying for protection from imports. The papers in this volume were chosen to explain the causes of present competitive problems in American industry and the factors that can lead to their gradual solution.

An original work containing new theory and empirical analyses on the macropolicy of growth. Provides a new approach capable of generating relevant policy prescriptions. Written in an accessible style using simple models.