Economic Policy Uncertainty and the Supply of Business Loans

Using a Vector Autoregressive framework of analysis, we show that banks contract their supply of business credit in response to an exogenous increase in economic policy uncertainty. This contraction takes two main, distinct forms. On the one hand, banks restrict their supply of spot funds, which we document using flows of loans and term loan originations. On the other, banks also curtail their provision of liquidity insurance, reducing the amount of new credit lines and embedding in them a pricing structure that reduces the probability of borrowers ever drawing down on the lines.