Book review of Fault Lines by Raghuram G. Rajan

Most people believe that the recent financial crisis had its roots in a boom in housing lending in the United States. After the dot-com bubble, the argument goes, the Federal Reserve Bank lowered the interest rates to stimulate corporate investment and recover from the downturn. As a side effect of low interest rates, mortgages became cheaper and Americans became attracted to the housing market. Credit for housing was provided by the sophisticated financial system of the United States, which allowed investors to purchase packages of mortgages from diversified geographical locations, and from individuals with different probabilities of default, according to their desired level of risk. As it turned out, these products caught the attention of investors from all over the world, who were attracted by their profitable returns and the implicit guarantees provided by the U.S. government to the issuing agencies and financial intermediaries. Therefore, housing credit was plentiful and, as a consequence, house prices in the United States rose. This in turn allowed mortgage borrowers to refinance their debts and avoid default. The party came to an end when interest rates increased and house prices fell, triggering a series of defaults in mortgages and driving values of the financial products near to zero, resulting in consequences with which we all are too familiar

Firms as liquidity providers: Evidence from the 2007–2008 financial crisis

Using a supplier–client matched sample, we study the effect of the 2007–2008 financial crisis on between-firm liquidity provision. Consistent with a causal effect of a negative shock to bank credit, we find that firms with high precrisis liquidity levels increased the trade credit extended to other corporations and subsequently experienced better performance as compared with ex ante cash-poor firms. Trade credit taken by constrained firms increased during this period. These findings are consistent with firms providing liquidity insurance to their clients when bank credit is scarce and offer an important precautionary savings motive for accumulating cash reserves

Managers' cultural origin and corporate response to an economic shock

We exploit the exogenous Covid-19 shock in a bicultural area of Italy to identify cultural differences in the way companies respond to economic shocks. Firms with managers of diverse cultural backgrounds resort to different forms of government aid, diverge in their investment decisions, and have different growth rates. These findings are consistent with cultural differences in time preferences and debt aversion. Specifically, we find that the response of managers belonging to a more long-term oriented culture is characterized by a lower recourse to debt, more investments and higher growth rates. Overall, our results show that the cultural origin of managers significantly affects firms’ reaction to economic shocks and real economic outcome

Contracts and returns in private equity investments

We analyze the relationship between contracts and returns in private equity (PE) investments. Contractual control in the form of covenants tends to be employed to identify good deals. Better quality firms are more likely to have covenant-rich contracts, as they are less concerned by the constraints imposed by the covenants. PE investors appoint closer associates of the fund in deals that are performing poorly but tend to outsource board governance in better deals. Collectively, our evidence suggests that PE investors operate along two dimensions, choosing covenants and board seats differently, based on the ex ante quality of the company

Book review of Fault Lines by Raghuram G. Rajan

Most people believe that the recent financial crisis had its roots in a boom in housing lending in the United States. After the dot-com bubble, the argument goes, the Federal Reserve Bank lowered the interest rates to stimulate corporate investment and recover from the downturn. As a side effect of low interest rates, mortgages became cheaper and Americans became attracted to the housing market. Credit for housing was provided by the sophisticated financial system of the United States, which allowed investors to purchase packages of mortgages from diversified geographical locations, and from individuals with different probabilities of default, according to their desired level of risk. As it turned out, these products caught the attention of investors from all over the world, who were attracted by their profitable returns and the implicit guarantees provided by the U.S. government to the issuing agencies and financial intermediaries. Therefore, housing credit was plentiful and, as a consequence, house prices in the United States rose. This in turn allowed mortgage borrowers to refinance their debts and avoid default. The party came to an end when interest rates increased and house prices fell, triggering a series of defaults in mortgages and driving values of the financial products near to zero, resulting in consequences with which we all are too familia

Indirect costs of financial distress

We estimate the indirect costs of financial distress due to lost sales by exploiting real estate (RE) shocks and cross-supplier variation in RE assets and leverage. We show that for the same client buying from different suppliers, the client’s purchases from distressed suppliers decline by an additional 13% following a drop in local RE prices. The effect is more pronounced in more competitive industries, manufacturing, durable goods, less-specific goods, and when the costs of switching suppliers are low. Our results suggest that clients reduce their exposure to suppliers in financial distress

The role of culture in firm-bank matching

We assemble a unique dataset containing population-level information on loan applications in a region hosting two cultural groups to study the role of culture in firm borrowing decisions. We find that firms are more likely to apply for loans from culturally close banks. This effect is stronger for opaque firms, but not for less performing firms, indicating that firms do not expect preferential treatment from same-culture banks. Loan applications to culturally distant banks increase sharply with firms’ size and age, suggesting a role of information asymmetry in firm-bank matching. In contrast, we find no effect of cultural proximity on loan supply. Overall, our results show that demand-side factors play a key role in the formation of same-culture lending relationships

The commitment problem of secured lending

The paper presents a new theory of trade credit in which firms buy inputs on credit from suppliers to restore the benefits of secured bank financing impaired by contract incompleteness. In a setting where investment is endogenous and unobservable to financiers, we show that a bank-secured credit contract is time-inconsistent. Upon being granted credit, the entrepreneur has an incentive to alter the original input combination, jeopardizing the bank’s revenues. Anticipating the entrepreneur’s opportunism, the bank offers an unsecured credit contract, reducing the surplus from the venture. One way for the entrepreneur to commit to the contract terms is to purchase inputs on credit from the supplier. The supplier observes the input investment and acts as a guarantor that inputs will be purchased as contracted, thus facilitating access to secured bank financing. The commitment role of trade credit still holds in a multi-period extension that investigates the impact of bank relationship lending on secured debt and trade credit. Our model provides novel testable predictions on optimal financial contracts in both one-period and repeated lending relationships