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Business fixed investment: evidence of a financial accelerator in Europe

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Author Info
Philip Vermeulen () (European Central Bank, Kaiserstrasse 29, Postfach 16 03 19, 60066 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.)

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Abstract

Financial accelerator theories imply that weak balance sheets can amplify adverse shocks on firm investment. This effect should be asymmetric, stronger in downturns than in upturns and stronger for small firms than for large firms. This paper provides empirical evidence of the presence of a financial accelerator in the four largest euro area economies: Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Using annual firm balance sheet data over the period 1983.1997 it is shown that weak balance sheets are more important in explaining investment during downturns than during upturns. It is further shown that the effects of the accelerator are largest for small firms. JEL Classification: E22; E44.

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Paper provided by European Central Bank in its series Working Paper Series with number 37.

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Length: 34 pages
Date of creation: Nov 2000
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20000037

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Related research
Keywords: Financial accelerator; investment; panel data.;

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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  2. Bernanke, Ben S. & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1999. "The financial accelerator in a quantitative business cycle framework," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1341-1393 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark, 1989. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 14-31, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Guariglia, Alessandra, 1999. "The Effects of Financial Constraints on Inventory Investment: Evidence from a Panel of UK Firms," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 66(261), pages 43-62, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Charles W. Calomiris & Athanasios Orphanides & Steven A. Sharpe, 1994. "Leverage as a state variable for employment, inventory accumulation, and fixed investment," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 94-24, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
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  7. Kashyap, Anil K & Lamont, Owen A & Stein, Jeremy C, 1994. "Credit Conditions and the Cyclical Behavior of Inventories," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(3), pages 565-92, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Oliner, Stephen & Rudebusch, Glenn & Sichel, Daniel, 1995. "New and Old Models of Business Investment: A Comparison of Forecasting Performance," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(3), pages 806-26, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1994. "Monetary Policy, Business Cycles, and the Behavior of Small Manufacturing Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(2), pages 309-40, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Moore, John, 1997. "Credit Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 211-48, April.
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  11. Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1993. " The Role of Credit Market Imperfections in the Monetary Transmission Mechanism: Arguments and Evidence," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 95(1), pages 43-64.
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  12. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-26, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Guiso, L. & Kashyap, A.K. & Panetta, F. & Terlizzese, D., 2000. "Will a Common European Monetary Policy Have Asymmetric Effects?," Papers 384, Banca Italia - Servizio di Studi.
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  16. 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(1988-1), pages 141-206. [Downloadable!]
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Albert Jaeger, 2003. "Corporate Balance Sheet Restructuring and Investment in the Euro Area," IMF Working Papers 03/117, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]
  2. Gert Peersman & Lorenzo Pozzi, . "Business cycle fluctuations and excess sensitivity of private consumption," Bank of England working papers 335, Bank of England. [Downloadable!]
  3. Paul Mizen & Serafeim Tsoukas, 2008. "Evidence on the External Finance Premium from the US and Emerging Asian Corporate Bond Markets," Working Papers 142008, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research. [Downloadable!]
  4. Carmen Martinez-Carrascal & Annalisa Ferrando, 2008. "Towards a monetary policy evaluation framework," Working Paper Series 943, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  5. Sylvia Kaufmann & Maria Teresa Valderrama, 2004. "Modeling Credit Aggregates," Working Papers 90, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank). [Downloadable!]
  6. Paul Butzen & Catherine Fuss & Philip Vermeulen, 2001. "The interest rate and credit channels in Belgium: an investigation with micro-level firm data," Research series 2001-12, National Bank of Belgium. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Marie Diron & Maria Cruz Manzano & Thomas Westermann, 2005. "Forecasting aggregate investment in the euro area: do indicators of financial conditions help?," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Investigating the relationship between the financial and real economy, volume 22, pages 206-27 Bank for International Settlements. [Downloadable!]
  8. Silvia Giannangeli & Giorgio Fagiolo & Massimo Molinari, 2008. "Financial Structure and Corporate Growth: Evidence from Italian Panel Data," LEM Papers Series 2008/17, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy. [Downloadable!]
  9. Paul Mizen & Cihan Yalcin, 2006. "Monetary Policy, Corporate Financial Composition and Real Activity," Working Papers 0601, Research and Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. [Downloadable!]
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  10. Patrick Lunnemann & Thomas Mathä, 2001. "Monetary transmission: empirical evidence from Luxembourg firm-level data," Working Paper Series 111, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  11. Gert Peersam & Frank Smets, 2002. "The industry effects of monetary policy in the Euro area," Working Paper Series 165, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  12. L. de Haan & E. Sterken, 2000. "Capital Structure, Corporate Goverance, and Monetary Policy: Firm-Level Evidence for the Euro Area," WO Research Memoranda (discontinued) 637, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department. [Downloadable!]
  13. Nuno Cassola & Claudio Morana, 2002. "Monetary policy and the stock market in the Euro area," Working Paper Series 119, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  14. Denise Côté & Christopher Graham, 2007. "Corporate Balance Sheets in Developed Economies: Implications for Investment," Working Papers 07-24, Bank of Canada. [Downloadable!]
  15. Bojan Markovic, . "Bank capital channels in the monetary transmission mechanism," Bank of England working papers 313, Bank of England. [Downloadable!]
  16. G. Peersman & L. Pozzi, 2004. "Determinants of consumption smoothing," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 04/231, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. [Downloadable!]
  17. Ignacio Hernando & Carmen Martínez-Carrascal, 2005. "The impact of financial variables on firms’ real decisions: evidence from Spanish firm-level data," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Investigating the relationship between the financial and real economy, volume 22, pages 40-63 Bank for International Settlements. [Downloadable!]
  18. Sylvia Kaufmann & Maria Teresa Valderrama, 2008. "Bank lending in Germany and the UK: are there differences between a bank-based and a market-based country?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(3), pages 266-279. [Downloadable!]
  19. Maria Teresa Valderrama, 2001. "Credit channel and investment behavior in Austria: a micro-econometric approach," Working Paper Series 108, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
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  20. Benoit Mojon & Frank Smets & Philip Vermeulen, 2001. "Investment and monetary policy in the Euro area," Working Paper Series 078, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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