Finance, Risk-Taking and Growth: Evidence from New U.S. Firm-Level Data

摘要中小企业是经济的重要贡献者。这些公司没有上市，员工不到500人，占美国所有雇主公司的90%以上。尽管它们很重要，但人们对这些公司的融资和资本结构的了解有限。根据调查数据，中小企业被认为是其最大的融资来源依赖于银行贷款，但从行政数据来看，对这些公司的融资渠道的了解有限。由于中小企业受到不同于公共企业的财务约束，这些企业的融资和投资决策对总体经济增长和投资具有重要影响。这项研究为推进涉及私营和公共公司真实和财务结果的公司级数据集的开发提供了一个连贯的路线图。该项目将使用新的数据来提供关于公司层面的财务限制以及这些限制对总体经济结果的影响的证据。该项目对理解中小企业在经济中的作用具有更广泛的影响。研究重点是对企业动态、金融摩擦和增长的计量分析。这些类型的分析很重要，因为具有企业异质性的金融摩擦模型越来越多地被嵌入到为货币政策提供信息的全面动态随机一般均衡模型中。由于无法获得小型私营企业的财务数据，此类模型缺乏经验证据。这些模型依赖于完全的公司规模分布，而缺乏关于小公司融资模式的数据阻碍了这些模型的数据应用。小公司对总体结果很重要。该项目通过链接公共和私营公司的细粒度公司级别数据，并探索融资和投资决策对一大批公司的经济结果的影响，促进了这一领域的知识。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

AbstractSmall and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are vital contributors to an economy. These companies are not listed, have less than 500 employees and account for more than 90 percent of all the U.S. employer firms. Despite their importance, there is limited knowledge about financing and capital structure of these firms. SMEs are considered to be dependent on bank loans for their largest source of financing based on survey data but there is limited knowledge on financing channels of these firms from administrative data. As SMEs are subject to different financial constraints than public firms, financing and investment decisions of these firms have important implications for economic growth and investment at the aggregate level. This research provides a coherent roadmap for advancing the development of firm-level data sets involving private and public firms’ real and financial outcomes. The project will use new data to bring evidence on firm-level financial constraints and implications of these for aggregate economic outcomes. The project has broader impact in understanding the role of SMEs in the economy.The research focuses on econometric analyses of firm dynamics, financial frictions and growth. These types of analyses are important since models of financial frictions with firm heterogeneity are increasingly being embedded into full scale dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models that inform monetary policy. Empirical evidence is lacking on such models due to unavailability of financial data on small private firms. The models rely on full firm size distribution and lack of data on small firms’ financing patterns hinders taking these models to the data. Small firms are important for the aggregate outcomes. This project advances the knowledge in this area by linking granular firm level data on public and private firms and by exploring the implications of financing and investment decisions on economic outcomes for a large set of firms.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.