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Verifying the state of financing constraints: Evidence from U.S. business credit contracts

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  • Meisenzahl, Ralf R.

Abstract

Many policymakers are concerned that tight financing constraints for small businesses are stalling the recovery from the Great Recession. This paper empirically assesses two agency problems that induce such financing constraints—one resulting in a “firm balance sheet channel” and one resulting in a “bank balance sheet channel”. Evaluating specific models of these two agency problems against a comprehensive data set of U.S. small business credit contracts, I find strong support for the firm balance sheet channel but only weak support for the bank balance sheet channel. A complementary regression analysis confirms this result. Hence, policies seeking to improve firms’ balance sheets may be desirable to support small business lending in the recovery from the Great Recession.

Suggested Citation

  • Meisenzahl, Ralf R., 2014. "Verifying the state of financing constraints: Evidence from U.S. business credit contracts," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 58-77.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:43:y:2014:i:c:p:58-77
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jedc.2014.03.006
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    3. Vouldis, Angelos, 2015. "Credit market disequilibrium in Greece (2003-2011) - a Bayesian approach," Working Paper Series 1805, European Central Bank.
    4. Saleem Bahaj & Angus Foulis & Gabor Pinter, 2016. "The Residential Collateral Channel," Discussion Papers 1607, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM), revised Jun 2016.
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    6. Ralf R. Meisenzahl, 2016. "Can Financing Constraints Explain the Evolution of the Firm Size Distribution?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 48(2), pages 123-147, March.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Firm balance sheet channel; Bank balance sheet channel; Small business lending;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General
    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General

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