MechanismsOur main finding isthat firms, conditional on their own credit supply shock, are also affected through buyer-supplier relations. In particular, downstream propagation from suppliers to customers is particularly relevant. There are a number of channels that may explain this finding, including:
- Trade credit. Suppliers hit by a negative bank lending shock might have shrink the trade credit offered to their customer firms which might, as a result, cut production if they are financially constrained. Costello (2017) showed that firms in the US more exposed to a large decline in bank lending during the Global Crisis reduced the trade credit extended to their customers. To explore this mechanism, we include accounts payable (trade credit received from suppliers) in our regressions and find that our downstream coefficient decreases in magnitude but remains significant and quantitatively relevant. Therefore, we conclude that trade credit adjustment plays a significant role, but it is not able to explain our estimated downstream propagation of credit shocks.
- Changes in relative prices. This is the standard channel that would emerge in the general class of models with input-output linkages (see Acemoglu et al. 2012). If a firm is hit by a negative credit supply shock, its relative supply will fall, which in general equilibrium will be associated with a higher price for the good produced by the firm. This will imply a higher production cost for this firm’s customers, who will end up reducing their demand for the good produced by the affected firm and decreasing their total output. To check whether this channel drove our estimates, we construct changes in price indexes between 2005 and 2008 for several Spanish industries and correlate them with our estimated direct and downstream shocks. As predicted by the standard general equilibrium models with IO linkages, we find that industries that are hit harder by negative direct and indirect shocks suffer higher increases in their price indexes.
The bank lending channel matters, if it has real effects in the economy. Overall, our results corroborate the importance of network effects in quantifying the real effects of credit shocks. More generally, our estimates show that the real effects of bank-lending shocks may vary substantially between booms and busts.
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Alfaro, L, M García-Santana, and E Moral-Benito (2018), “On the Direct and Indirect Real Effects of Credit Supply Shocks.” CEPR Discussion Paper 12794.
Alfaro, L, P Antras, D Chor, and P Conconi (2018), "Internalizing Global Value Chains: A Firm-Level Analysis", Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming.
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