IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdi/wptemi/td_793_11.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Credit availability and investment in Italy: lessons from the "Great Recession"

Author

Listed:
  • Eugenio Gaiotti

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

The paper argues that the traditional difficulty encountered in finding evidence on the effects of credit availability on economic activity depends on the fact that these effects are powerful but rare and vary with the cycle. The global financial crisis offers an opportunity to test this assumption. The paper exploits a unique dataset, including direct information on credit rationing for 1,200 Italian firms over the last twenty years. We find that the elasticity of a firm�s investment to the availability of bank credit has been significant in periods of economic contraction, but not in other periods; that the ability to tap alternative sources of finance is crucial to this result; that during the global crisis the impact of credit constraints on Italian investment in manufacturing was significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Eugenio Gaiotti, 2011. "Credit availability and investment in Italy: lessons from the "Great Recession"," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 793, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
  • Handle: RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_793_11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/temi-discussione/2011/2011-0793/en_tema_793.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Eisner, 1978. "Factors in Business Investment," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number eisn78-1, March.
    2. Stefania De Mitri & Giorgio Gobbi & Enrico Sette, 2010. "Relationship lending in a financial turmoil," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 772, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    3. Luigi Guiso & Giuseppe Parigi, 1999. "Investment and Demand Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 114(1), pages 185-227.
    4. Jaffee, Dwight M & Modigliani, Franco, 1969. "A Theory and Test of Credit Rationing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(5), pages 850-872, December.
    5. Bordo, Michael D. & Haubrich, Joseph G., 2010. "Credit crises, money and contractions: An historical view," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 1-18, January.
    6. Guiso, Luigi, 1998. "High-tech firms and credit rationing," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 39-59, March.
    7. Paolo Angelini & Andrea Generale, 2008. "On the Evolution of Firm Size Distributions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 426-438, March.
    8. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1996. "The Financial Accelerator and the Flight to Quality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 1-15, February.
    9. Angeloni,Ignazio & Kashyap,Anil K. & Mojon,Benoît (ed.), 2003. "Monetary Policy Transmission in the Euro Area," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521828642.
    10. Steven M. Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 1988. "Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1), pages 141-206.
    11. Eugenio Gaiotti & Andrea Generale, 2002. "Does Monetary Policy Have Asymmetric Effects? A Look at the Investment Decisions of Italian Firms," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 61(1), pages 29-59, June.
    12. Takeo Hoshi & Anil Kashyap & David Scharfstein, 1991. "Corporate Structure, Liquidity, and Investment: Evidence from Japanese Industrial Groups," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(1), pages 33-60.
    13. Bontempi, Maria Elena & Golinelli, Roberto & Parigi, Giuseppe, 2010. "Why demand uncertainty curbs investment: Evidence from a panel of Italian manufacturing firms," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 218-238, March.
    14. Puri, Manju & Rocholl, Jörg & Steffen, Sascha, 2011. "Global retail lending in the aftermath of the US financial crisis: Distinguishing between supply and demand effects," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 556-578, June.
    15. Duca John V. & Rosenthal Stuart S., 1993. "Borrowing Constraints, Household Debt, and Racial Discrimination in Loan Markets," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 77-103, October.
    16. Lee, Sangwoo & Park, Kwangwoo & Shin, Hyun-Han, 2009. "Disappearing internal capital markets: Evidence from diversified business groups in Korea," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 326-334, February.
    17. Dwight M. Jaffee & Thomas Russell, 1976. "Imperfect Information, Uncertainty, and Credit Rationing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(4), pages 651-666.
    18. Steven N. Kaplan & Luigi Zingales, 2000. "Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities Are Not Valid Measures of Financing Constraints," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(2), pages 707-712.
    19. Peter van Els & Alberto Locarno & Benoît Mojon & Julian Morgan, 2003. "New Macroeconomic Evidence on Monetary Policy Transmission in the Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(2-3), pages 720-730, 04/05.
    20. Ciccarelli, Matteo & Maddaloni, Angela & Peydró, José-Luis, 2015. "Trusting the bankers: A new look at the credit channel of monetary policy," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 18(4), pages 979-1002.
    21. Guido de Blasio, 2005. "Does Trade Credit Substitute Bank Credit? Evidence from Firm‐level Data," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 34(1), pages 85-112, February.
    22. Ehrmann, Michael & Backé, Peter, 2003. "Monetary policy transmission in the euro area: any changes after EMU?," Working Paper Series 240, European Central Bank.
    23. Ugo Albertazzi & Domenico J. Marchetti, 2010. "Credit supply, flight to quality and evergreening: an analysis of bank-firm relationships after Lehman," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 756, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    24. Angelini, P. & Di Salvo, R. & Ferri, G., 1998. "Availability and cost of credit for small businesses: Customer relationships and credit cooperatives," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(6-8), pages 925-954, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Roberto Felici & Elisabetta Manzoli & Raffaella Pico, 2012. "Crisis and Italian households: a microeconomic analysis of mortgage contracts," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 125, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    2. Martina Cecioni & Giuseppe Ferrero & Alessandro Secchi, 2018. "Unconventional Monetary Policy in Theory and in Practice," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Douglas D Evanoff & George G Kaufman & A G Malliaris (ed.), Innovative Federal Reserve Policies During the Great Financial Crisis, chapter 1, pages 1-36, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. Giorgio Albareto & Paolo Finaldi Russo, 2012. "Financial fragility and growth prospects: credit rationing during the crisis," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 127, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    4. Valerio Vacca, 2011. "An unexpected crisis? Looking at pricing effectiveness of different banks," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 814, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    5. Emilia Bonaccorsi di Patti & Enrico Sette, 2012. "Bank balance sheets and the transmission of financial shocks to borrowers: evidence from the 2007-2008 crisis," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 848, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    6. Del Giovane, Paolo & Eramo, Ginette & Nobili, Andrea, 2011. "Disentangling demand and supply in credit developments: A survey-based analysis for Italy," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 2719-2732, October.
    7. Martin Pospisil & Jiri Schwarz, 2014. "Bankruptcy, Investment, and Financial Constraints: Evidence from a Post-Transition Economy," Working Papers IES 2014/12, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Apr 2014.
    8. Steve Bond & Gicoamo Rodano & Nicolas Serrano-Velarde, 2015. "Investment Dynamics in Italy: Financing Constraints, Demand and Uncertainty," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 283, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    9. Douglas Sutherland & Peter Hoeller, 2012. "Debt and Macroeconomic Stability: An Overview of the Literature and Some Empirics," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1006, OECD Publishing.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gaiotti, Eugenio, 2013. "Credit availability and investment: Lessons from the “great recession”," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 212-227.
    2. Paul Mizen & Cihan Yalcin, 2006. "Monetary Policy, Corporate Financial Composition and Real Activity," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 52(1), pages 177-213, March.
    3. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    4. Ferri, Giovanni & Murro, Pierluigi, 2015. "Do firm–bank ‘odd couples’ exacerbate credit rationing?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 231-251.
    5. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1998. "Capital-Market Imperfections and Investment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 193-225, March.
    6. Valentina Peruzzi, 2017. "Does family ownership structure affect investment-cash flow sensitivity? Evidence from Italian SMEs," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(43), pages 4378-4393, September.
    7. Ferrando, Annalisa & Popov, Alexander & Udell, Gregory F., 2017. "Sovereign stress and SMEs’ access to finance: Evidence from the ECB's SAFE survey," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 65-80.
    8. Yang, Xiaolou, 2011. "Trade credit versus bank credit: Evidence from corporate inventory financing," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 419-434.
    9. Ongena, Steven & Schindele, Ibolya & Vonnák, Dzsamila, 2014. "In lands of foreign currency credit, bank lending channels run through? The effects of monetary policy at home and abroad on the currency denomination of the supply of credit," CFS Working Paper Series 474, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    10. Hönig, Anja, 2012. "Financing Constraints Revisited - Is there a Role for Taxation and Internal Funds?," VfS Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 66053, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    11. Hyun-Euy Kim, 2007. "The Interest Rate Channel of Monetary Transmission under Low Inflation in Korea (in Korean)," Economic Analysis (Quarterly), Economic Research Institute, Bank of Korea, vol. 13(1), pages 1-56, March.
    12. Alex Bryson & Harald Dale-Olsen & Trygve Gulbrandsen, 2016. "Family ownership, Workplace Closure and the Recession," DoQSS Working Papers 16-06, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    13. Simon Gilchrist & Benoit Mojon, 2018. "Credit Risk in the Euro Area," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(608), pages 118-158, February.
    14. Gabriele Angori & David Aristei, 2020. "Heterogeneity and state dependence in firms’ access to credit: Microevidence from the euro area," SEEDS Working Papers 0220, SEEDS, Sustainability Environmental Economics and Dynamics Studies, revised Feb 2020.
    15. Annalisa Ferrando & Alexander Popov & Gregory F. Udell, 2019. "Do SMEs Benefit from Unconventional Monetary Policy and How? Microevidence from the Eurozone," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(4), pages 895-928, June.
    16. Sajjad Zaheer & Steven Ongena & Sweder J.G. van Wijnbergen, 2013. "The Transmission of Monetary Policy Through Conventional and Islamic Banks," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 9(4), pages 175-224, December.
    17. Jean-Bernard Chatelain, 2003. "Structural modelling of financial constraints on investment: where do we stand?," Chapters, in: Paul Butzen & Catherine Fuss (ed.), Firms’ Investment and Finance Decisions, chapter 2, pages 40-58, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Ongena, Steven & Schindele, Ibolya & Vonnák, Dzsamila, 2021. "In lands of foreign currency credit, bank lending channels run through?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    19. Auray, Stéphane & de Blas, Beatriz, 2013. "Investment, matching and persistence in a modified cash-in-advance economy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 591-610.
    20. Parker, Simon C, 2002. "Do Banks Ration Credit to New Enterprises? And Should Governments Intervene? President's Lecture Delivered at the Annual General Meeting of the Scottish Economic Society 4-5 September 2001," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 49(2), pages 162-195, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    credit availability; credit channel; Great Recession;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • E51 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_793_11. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdigvit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.