Search Results
Discussion Paper
Assisting Firms during a Crisis: Benefits and Costs
Public and private efforts to reduce COVID-19 infection levels have led to a sharp drop in economic activity around the world. In an attempt to mitigate the damage to businesses, governments around the world have implemented a variety of financial programs to help firms. These programs have been criticized as interfering with markets, providing bailouts, and creating adverse incentives. In this article, I review both the rationale for government-provided assistance and the costs of providing that assistance from the perspective of how that aid effects the likely level and volatility of ...
Journal Article
Assisting Firms during a Crisis: Benefits and Costs
Public and private efforts to reduce COVID-19 infection levels have led to a sharp drop in economic activity around the world. In an attempt to mitigate the damage to businesses, governments around the world have implemented a variety of financial programs to help firms. These programs have been criticized as interfering with markets, providing bailouts, and creating adverse incentives. In this article, I review both the rationale for government-provided assistance and the costs of providing that assistance from the perspective of how that aid effects the likely level and volatility of ...
Working Paper
The Profitability Channel of Monetary Policy Transmission
We provide firm-level evidence that Federal Open Market Committee announcements have real effects by changing expectations of firm profitability. We use an existing decomposition of a monetary policy shock into a central bank information component (CBI) and a conventional monetary component (MP). We find (1) firms with a higher value of capital asset pricing model (CAPM) beta have a higher investment rate sensitivity to the CBI component; no similar heterogeneity in investment response is observed for the MP component. We also find (2) the heterogeneity in investment sensitivity is due to ...
Working Paper
The Profitability Channel of Monetary Policy Transmission
We provide firm-level evidence that Federal Open Market Committee announcements have real effects by changing expectations of firm profitability. We use an existing decomposition of a monetary policy shock into a central bank information component (CBI) and a conventional monetary component (MP). We find (1) firms with a higher value of capital asset pricing model (CAPM) beta have a higher investment rate sensitivity to the CBI component; no similar heterogeneity in investment response is observed for the MP component. We also find (2) the heterogeneity in investment sensitivity is due to ...
Working Paper
The Profitability Channel of Monetary Policy Transmission
We provide firm-level evidence that Federal Open Market Committee announcements have real effects by changing expectations of firm profitability. We use an existing decomposition of a monetary policy shock into a central bank information component (CBI) and a conventional monetary component (MP). We find (1) firms with a higher value of capital asset pricing model (CAPM) beta have a higher investment rate sensitivity to the CBI component; no similar heterogeneity in investment response is observed for the MP component. We also find (2) the heterogeneity in investment sensitivity is due to ...
Working Paper
The Fed Information Effect and Firm-Level Investment: Evidence and Theory
We present evidence that the Fed's private information about economic conditions revealed through Federal Open Market Committee announcements affect firm investment. We use firm-level investment data and analyst forecasts of firm fundamentals to document three facts. First, the investment rate sensitivity to Fed information is greater for more cyclical firms. Second, revisions in analyst forecasts of firm fundamentals are greater for more cyclical firms. Third, the investment response is consistent with changes in firm profitability following Fed announcements. We propose a HANK model to ...
Working Paper
The Fed Information Effect and Firm-Level Investment: Evidence and Theory
We present evidence that the Fed's private information about economic conditions revealed through Federal Open Market Committee announcements affect firm investment. We use firm-level investment data and analyst forecasts of firm fundamentals to document three facts. First, the investment rate sensitivity to Fed information is greater for more cyclical firms. Second, revisions in analyst forecasts of firm fundamentals are greater for more cyclical firms. Third, the investment response is consistent with changes in firm profitability following Fed announcements. We propose a HANK model to ...
Working Paper
High-Yield Debt Covenants and Their Real Effects
High-yield debt, including leveraged loans, is characterized by incurrence financial covenants, or “cov-lite” provisions. Unlike, traditional, maintenance covenants, incurrence covenants preserve equity control rights but trigger pre-specified restrictions on the borrower’s actions once the covenant threshold is crossed. We show that restricted actions impose significant constraints on investments: Similar to the effects of the shift of control rights to creditors in traditional loans, the drop in investment under incurrence covenants is large and sudden. This evidence suggests a new ...
Working Paper
Relationship Lending: That Ship Has Not Sailed for Community Banks
This study provides direct evidence of the value to banks arising from relationship lending by estimating the market premium placed on banking organizations’ small business loan portfolios. Using data from the small business loan survey contained in the June bank Call Reports, we find that small commercial and industrial (C&I) loans add value to community banks both in absolute terms and relative to the value contributed by larger C&I loans. The value‐enhancing effect of small business loans is observed primarily at small community banks, and it was present during the Great Recession as ...
Working Paper
Legal Institutions, Credit Markets, and Economic Activity
This paper provides novel evidence on the causal connections between legal institutions, credit markets, and real economic activity. Our analysis exploits an unexplored within-country setting?Native American reservations?together with quasi-experimental variation in legal contract enforcement wherein the US Congress externally assigned state courts to adjudicate contracts on a subset of reservations. According to area-specific data on small business credit, reservations assigned to state courts, which enforce contracts more predictably than tribal courts, have stronger credit markets. ...