Financial Conditions and the Cyclical Behavior of Business Firms: An Empirical Investigation

9422761在商业周期分析中，一个长期存在的问题是理解小的冲击如何可能造成产出的大波动。最近的理论研究表明，金融传播机制如何放大由技术冲击或货币政策变化引起的支出和生产波动。该理论的出发点是，对于一个重要的借款人群体（家庭、中小企业等）来说，信息和执行问题可能会推动无抵押资金的成本高于内部资金的价格。在这种情况下，借款人可获得的抵押品（广义定义）和内部资金的供应影响着他们面临的信贷条件。通过这种方式，借款人的财务状况最终会影响他们的支出和生产决策。该理论预测，在其他条件相同的情况下，不同借款人阶层之间的周期性行为应该有所不同，这取决于他们各自获得信贷的途径。信贷市场摩擦也更有可能影响到经济衰退期间的行为，因为此时借款人的资产负债表相对较弱。因此，为了确定金融传播效应，重要的是要查看商业周期不同阶段以及不同类别借款人的数据。本项目将使用最新可用的人口普查局面板数据对企业进行经验性评估，这些数据包含丰富的横截面维度和商业周期频率下的长时间序列维度，以经验性评估金融传播机制。与以前使用的公司层面的数据集不同，该数据涵盖了制造业和其他部门的非上市公司和上市公司，并且具有按季度频率提供的长时间序列。更具体地说，该项目有助于我们从四个方面理解金融传播机制：首先是对制造业数据的全面描述性分析。第二种方法涉及对库存和投资需求方程的结构性估计，以确定流动性约束对该部门的影响。第三章将企业层面的数据与人口普查局工厂层面的数据联系起来，研究金融因素对制造业劳动力需求的影响。最后的项目将这些努力扩展到零售和批发贸易部门。

9422761 A longstanding issue in business cycle analysis is understanding how small shocks may produce large fluctuations in output. Recent theoretical research has shown how financial propagation mechanisms could amplify swings in spending and production caused by technology shocks or shifts in monetary. The theory begins with the idea, that for a significant class of borrowers (households, small and medium sized firms, etc.), information and enforcement problems may drive the cost of uncollateralized funds above the price of internal funds. Under these circumstances, borrowers' available supplies of collateral (broadly defined) and internal funds influence the terms of credit they face. In this way, borrowers' financial positions ultimately influence their spending and production decisions. The theory predicts that differences in cyclical behavior should emerge across classes of borrowers, depending on their respective access to credit, everything else equal. Credit market frictions are also more likely to impinge on behavior around recessionary periods, when borrowers have relatively weak balance sheets. To identify financial propagation effects, therefore, it is important to look at data across different phases of the business cycle, as well as across different classes of borrowers. This project will empirically assess financial propagation mechanisms using a newly available Census Bureau panel data for firms that contain both a rich cross-sectional dimension and a long time series dimension at the business cycle frequency to empirically assess financial propagation mechanisms. Unlike previously used firm level data sets, this data covers non-publicly as well as publicly traded firms for both manufacturing and other sectors, and has a long time series available at the quarterly frequency. More specifically, this project contributes to our understanding of financial propagation mechanisms in four ways: The first is a comprehensive descriptive ana lysis of the data for the manufacturing sector. The second involves structural estimation of inventory and investment demand equations to identify the influence of liquidity constraints in this sector. The third links the firm level data to Census Bureau plant level data to study the effects of financial factors on labor demand in manufacturing. The final project extends these efforts to the retail and wholesale trade sectors.