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Discussion Paper
Weathering the Storm: Who Can Access Credit in a Pandemic?
Credit enables firms to weather temporary disruptions in their business that may impair their cash flow and limit their ability to meet commitments to suppliers and employees. The onset of the COVID recession sparked a massive increase in bank credit, largely driven by firms drawing on pre-committed credit lines. In this post, which is based on a recent Staff Report, we investigate which firms were able to tap into bank credit to help sustain their business over the ensuing downturn.
Report
Bank Funding Risk, Reference Rates, and Credit Supply
Corporate credit lines are drawn more heavily when funding markets are more stressed. This covariance elevates expected bank funding costs. We show that credit supply is dampened by the associated debt-overhang cost to bank shareholders. Until 2022, this impact was reduced by linking the interest paid on lines to credit-sensitive reference rates such as LIBOR. We show that transition to risk-free reference rates may exacerbate this friction. The adverse impact on credit supply is offset if drawdowns are expected to be left on deposit at the same bank, which happened at some of the largest ...
Report
Bank Liquidity Provision across the Firm Size Distribution
Using loan-level data covering two-thirds of all corporate loans from U.S. banks, we document that SMEs (i) obtain much shorter maturity credit lines than large firms; (ii) have less active maturity management and therefore frequently have expiring credit; (iii) post more collateral on both credit lines and term loans; (iv) have higher utilization rates in normal times; and (v) pay higher spreads, even conditional on other firm characteristics. We present a theory of loan terms that rationalizes these facts as the equilibrium outcome of a trade-off between commitment and discretion. We test ...
Discussion Paper
The Side Effects of Shadow Banking on Liquidity Provision
Over the past two decades, the growth of shadow banking has transformed the way the U.S. banking system funds corporations. In this post, we describe how this growth has affected both the term loan and credit line businesses, and how the changes have resulted in a reduction in the liquidity insurance provided to firms.
Discussion Paper
Nonbanks Are Growing but Their Growth Is Heavily Supported by Banks
Traditional approaches to financial sector regulation view banks and nonbank financial institutions (NBFIs) as substitutes, one inside and the other outside the perimeter of prudential regulation, with the growth of one implying the shrinking of the other. In this post, we argue instead that banks and NBFIs are better described as intimately interconnected, with NBFIs being especially dependent on banks both for term loans and lines of credit.