IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finmar/v55y2021ics1386418120300720.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bank credit tightening, debt market frictions, and corporate yield spreads

Author

Listed:
  • Massa, Massimo
  • Zhang, Lei

Abstract

We study how credit supply frictions in the regional availability of debt financing in the U.S. affect corporate yield spreads. We define a measure of debt inflexibility that captures the firm’s inability to buffer a tightening in bank credit by replacing bank loans with corporate bonds. We document that more inflexible firms suffer a higher increase in yield spreads as bank credit tightens. This happens for both market-wide tightening in lending standards and firm-specific tightening upon loan covenant violations. Moreover, inflexible firms display a closer connection between changes in yield spreads and stock returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Massa, Massimo & Zhang, Lei, 2021. "Bank credit tightening, debt market frictions, and corporate yield spreads," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:finmar:v:55:y:2021:i:c:s1386418120300720
    DOI: 10.1016/j.finmar.2020.100603
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1386418120300720
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.finmar.2020.100603?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2004. "A New Measure of Monetary Shocks: Derivation and Implications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1055-1084, September.
    2. Degryse, H.A. & Ongena, S., 2002. "Distance, Lending Relationships and Competition," Other publications TiSEM 122f97cc-f8b2-4b3b-9351-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Mr. Christopher W. Crowe & Mr. S. Mahdi Barakchian, 2010. "Monetary Policy Matters: New Evidence Basedon a New Shock Measure," IMF Working Papers 2010/230, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Lown, Cara & Morgan, Donald P., 2006. "The Credit Cycle and the Business Cycle: New Findings Using the Loan Officer Opinion Survey," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(6), pages 1575-1597, September.
    5. Loughran, Tim & Schultz, Paul, 2005. "Liquidity: Urban versus rural firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 341-374, November.
    6. Ulf Axelson & Tim Jenkinson & Per Strömberg & Michael S. Weisbach, 2013. "Borrow Cheap, Buy High? The Determinants of Leverage and Pricing in Buyouts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(6), pages 2223-2267, December.
    7. Raymond E. Owens & Stacey L. Schreft, 1991. "Survey evidence of tighter credit conditions: what does it mean?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 77(Mar), pages 29-34.
    8. Kashyap, Anil K & Stein, Jeremy C & Wilcox, David W, 1993. "Monetary Policy and Credit Conditions: Evidence from the Composition of External Finance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 78-98, March.
    9. Cara S. Lown & Donald P. Morgan, 2002. "Credit effects in the monetary mechanism," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 8(May), pages 217-235.
    10. Kashyap, Anil K. & Stein, Jeremy C., 1995. "The impact of monetary policy on bank balance sheets," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 151-195, June.
    11. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 1999. "Home Bias at Home: Local Equity Preference in Domestic Portfolios," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2045-2073, December.
    12. Baik, Bok & Kang, Jun-Koo & Kim, Jin-Mo, 2010. "Local institutional investors, information asymmetries, and equity returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 81-106, July.
    13. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 2001. "The Geography of Investment: Informed Trading and Asset Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(4), pages 811-841, August.
    14. Mark T. Leary, 2009. "Bank Loan Supply, Lender Choice, and Corporate Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(3), pages 1143-1185, June.
    15. Del Guercio, Diane, 1996. "The distorting effect of the prudent-man laws on institutional equity investments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 31-62, January.
    16. John Y. Campbell & Glen B. Taksler, 2003. "Equity Volatility and Corporate Bond Yields," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2321-2350, December.
    17. Bassett, William F. & Chosak, Mary Beth & Driscoll, John C. & Zakrajšek, Egon, 2014. "Changes in bank lending standards and the macroeconomy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 23-40.
    18. William F. Bassett & Egon Zakrajšek, 2003. "Recent developments in business lending by commercial banks," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), vol. 89(Dec), pages 477-492, December.
    19. Max M. Schanzenbach & Robert H. Sitkoff, 2007. "Did Reform of Prudent Trust Investment Laws Change Trust Portfolio Allocation?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(4), pages 681-711.
    20. Qiu, Jiaping & Yu, Fan, 2012. "Endogenous liquidity in credit derivatives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(3), pages 611-631.
    21. Hans Degryse & Steven Ongena, 2005. "Distance, Lending Relationships, and Competition," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 231-266, February.
    22. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:6:p:2225-2241 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Huberman, Gur, 2001. "Familiarity Breeds Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 659-680.
    24. Jeremy C. Stein & Anil K. Kashyap, 2000. "What Do a Million Observations on Banks Say about the Transmission of Monetary Policy?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 407-428, June.
    25. Schaefer, Stephen M. & Strebulaev, Ilya A., 2008. "Structural models of credit risk are useful: Evidence from hedge ratios on corporate bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 1-19, October.
    26. Greg Nini & David C. Smith & Amir Sufi, 2012. "Creditor Control Rights, Corporate Governance, and Firm Value," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(6), pages 1713-1761.
    27. Alberto Manconi & Massimo Massa & Lei Zhang, 2016. "Bondholder Concentration and Credit Risk: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 20(1), pages 127-159.
    28. Alexander W. Butler, 2008. "Distance Still Matters: Evidence from Municipal Bond Underwriting," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 763-784, April.
    29. Mitchell A. Petersen & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2002. "Does Distance Still Matter? The Information Revolution in Small Business Lending," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(6), pages 2533-2570, December.
    30. Robin Greenwood & Samuel G. Hanson, 2013. "Issuer Quality and Corporate Bond Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(6), pages 1483-1525.
    31. Charles J. Hadlock & Joshua R. Pierce, 2010. "New Evidence on Measuring Financial Constraints: Moving Beyond the KZ Index," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(5), pages 1909-1940.
    32. Massa, Massimo & Zhang, Lei, 2013. "Monetary policy and regional availability of debt financing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(4), pages 439-458.
    33. Nini, Greg & Smith, David C. & Sufi, Amir, 2009. "Creditor control rights and firm investment policy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 400-420, June.
    34. Lemmon, Michael & Roberts, Michael R., 2010. "The Response of Corporate Financing and Investment to Changes in the Supply of Credit," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(3), pages 555-587, June.
    35. Pierre Collin-Dufresn & Robert S. Goldstein & J. Spencer Martin, 2001. "The Determinants of Credit Spread Changes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(6), pages 2177-2207, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Massa, Massimo & Zhang, Lei, 2015. "Bank Credit Tightening, Debt Market Frictions and Corporate Yield Spreads," CEPR Discussion Papers 10537, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Massa, Massimo & Zhang, Lei, 2013. "Monetary policy and regional availability of debt financing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(4), pages 439-458.
    3. Knyazeva, Anzhela & Knyazeva, Diana, 2012. "Does being your bank’s neighbor matter?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1194-1209.
    4. Chen, Honghui & Qu, Yuanyu & Shen, Tao & Wang, Qinghai, 2024. "Soft information in portfolio management," SocArXiv 84tfm_v1, Center for Open Science.
    5. Xuanyi Chen & Qiliang Liu & Li Tian & Junbo Wang & Jian Xie, 2024. "Time distance and mutual fund holding horizon: Evidence from a quasi‐natural experiment setting of high‐speed railway opening," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 64(4), pages 4277-4312, December.
    6. Chen, Honghui & Qu, Yuanyu & Shen, Tao & Wang, Qinghai, 2024. "Soft information in portfolio management," SocArXiv 84tfm, Center for Open Science.
    7. Uysal, Vahap B. & Kedia, Simi & Panchapagesan, Venkatesh, 2008. "Geography and acquirer returns," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 256-275, April.
    8. Hasan, Iftekhar & Shen, Yi & Yuan, Xiaojing, 2021. "Local product market competition and bank loans," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    9. Boubakri, Narjess & Guedhami, Omrane & Saffar, Walid, 2016. "Geographic location, foreign ownership, and cost of equity capital: Evidence from privatization," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 363-381.
    10. José María Liberti & Mitchell A. Petersen, 2018. "Information: Hard and Soft," NBER Working Papers 25075, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Degryse, Hans & Matthews, Kent & Zhao, Tianshu, 2018. "SMEs and access to bank credit: Evidence on the regional propagation of the financial crisis in the UK," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 53-70.
    12. Rosy Locorotondo & Nico Dewaelheyns & Cynthia Hulle, 2015. "Affiliates’ Bank Debt Policy: Does Parent Firm Nationality Matter?," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(5-6), pages 747-776, June.
    13. Hasan, Iftekhar & Minnick, Kristina & Raman, Kartik, 2020. "Credit allocation when borrowers are economically linked: An empirical analysis of bank loans to corporate customers," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    14. Carlo Altavilla & Miguel Boucinha & Sarah Holton & Steven Ongena, 2021. "Credit Supply and Demand in Unconventional Times," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(8), pages 2071-2098, December.
    15. Benson, Bradley W. & Chen, Yu & James, Hui L. & Park, Jung Chul, 2020. "So far away from me: Firm location and the managerial ownership effect on firm value," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    16. Li, Mingsheng & Zhao, Xin, 2016. "Neighborhood effect on stock price comovement," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 1-22.
    17. Shu Feng & Chang Liu & Xiaoling Pu, 2022. "Connected Lending in Bank Lines of Credit," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 61(2), pages 187-216, April.
    18. Sadok El Ghoul & Omrane Guedhami & Yang Ni & Jeffrey Pittman & Samir Saadi, 2012. "Does Religion Matter to Equity Pricing?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 111(4), pages 491-518, December.
    19. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    20. Orkun Saka, 2019. "Domestic Banks as Lightning Rods? Home Bias and Information during the Eurozone Crisis," CESifo Working Paper Series 7939, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bank credit tightening; Debt inflexibility; Lending standards; Yield spreads;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

    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:eee:finmar:v:55:y:2021:i:c:s1386418120300720. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/finmar .

    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.