Sorting Out the Real Effects of Credit Supply

49 Pages Posted: 24 May 2021 Last revised: 23 Apr 2023

See all articles by Briana Chang

Briana Chang

University of Wisconsin - Madison - Department of Finance, Investment and Banking

Matthieu Gomez

Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics

Harrison G. Hong

Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Date Written: May 2021

Abstract

We document that banks which cut lending more during the Great Recession were lending to riskier firms. To explain this evidence, we build a competitive matching model of bank-firm relationships in which risky firms borrow from banks with low holding costs. Based on default probabilities and equilibrium loan rates, we use our sorting model to recover the latent bank holding cost distribution. The measure of banks with low holding costs dropped during the Great Recession. This credit supply shift conservatively accounted for around 50% of the decline in corporate loans over this period. Our attribution cannot be captured by panel regression estimates from the bank lending channel literature.

Suggested Citation

Chang, Briana and Gomez, Matthieu and Hong, Harrison G., Sorting Out the Real Effects of Credit Supply (May 2021). NBER Working Paper No. w28842, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3851845

Briana Chang (Contact Author)

University of Wisconsin - Madison - Department of Finance, Investment and Banking ( email )

975 University Avenue
Madison, WI 53706
United States

Matthieu Gomez

Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics ( email )

420 W. 118th Street
New York, NY 10027
United States

Harrison G. Hong

Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics ( email )

420 W. 118th Street
New York, NY 10027
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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