The Non-Financial Consequences of Financial Relationships

这项研究分析了一个新的数据库，其中提供了1982年至1995年关于27 000多家意大利公司的损益表和资产负债表的资料。这些信息可以与公司与银行的关系联系起来——主要是公司从不同银行借了多少钱，以及公司从银行借了多长时间的不精确衡量。银行的资产负债表数据和银行的监管报告也可供查阅。因此，这个数据库提供了比任何其他可用来源更全面的银行和公司关系的情况。该项目的主要部分着眼于银行业危机的影响。这项研究记录了一家原本健康的公司在其主要贷款人陷入困境时所发生的事情。这些数据将允许分析其他资金来源的替代情况；企业承担的用人、投资、销售调整；以及该公司竞争对手的反应。因此，有可能估计出比流动性约束文献中典型的冲击更完整的一般均衡影响。一项配套研究将分析金融因素在特质冲击和行业层面冲击传播中的作用。在本研究中，研究了企业在这些冲击之后对就业和投资的调整是否与企业的融资结构有关。大样本量和公司与银行之间关系的详细数据相结合，将大大改善过去对财务关系影响公司应对财务困境程度的估计。最后，研究了银行贷款在货币政策传导中的作用。分析了意大利北部和南部货币政策的影响是否受到银行市场差异的影响。一个目标是确定贷款在多大程度上顺利地跨地区流动。回答这个问题很重要，因为对欧洲共同货币政策的有效调整可能取决于各地区之间的大规模信贷流动。

This research analyzes a newly available database which provides information from 1982 to 1995 on the income statements and balance sheets of over 27,000 Italian firms. This information can be linked to information on the firms' relationships with their banks-mainly how much is borrowed from different banks and an imprecise measure of how long the firm has borrowed from the bank. Data on the balance sheets of the banks and supervisory reports on the banks are also available. Consequently, this data base provides a much more comprehensive picture of bank firm relations than any other available source. The major part of this project looks at the fallout from a banking crisis. This study documents what happens to an otherwise healthy firm when its main lender runs into trouble. These data will permit analyses of the substitution of other sources of financing; the employment, investment and sales adjustments undertaken by the firm; and the responses of the firm's competitors. Thus, it is possible to estimate a much more complete general-equilibrium impact of the shock than is typical in the literature on liquidity constraints. A companion study will analyze the role of financial factors in the propagation of idiosyncratic and industry level shocks. In this study, it is investigated whether firms' adjustment of employment and investment following these shocks relates to the structure of the firms' financing. The combination of the large sample size and detailed data on the ties between firms and banks will allow a significantly improvement on past estimates of the degree to which financial relationships shape a firm's response to financial distress. Finally, the role of bank lending in the transmission of monetary policy is investigated. Whether the impact of monetary policy in Northern and Southern Italy is influenced by the differences in the banking markets is analyzed. One goal is to determine the extent to which lending smoothly flows across regions. Answering this question is important because an efficient adjustment to a common European monetary policy may depend on large credit flows across regions.