Abstract This paper finds that declining bank equity or liquidity reduces liquidation values of bank-owned real estate and accelerates the pace of asset sales. Buyers of these assets earn significant returns for providing liquidity to banks, as prices tend to rebound sharply after sales by illiquid banks. Lower liquidation values also depress the prices of nearby real estate transactions. Policy interventions, such as equity injections and central bank asset purchases, increase liquidation values by providing institutions with the balance sheet capacity to slow asset sales. This evidence suggests that balance sheet adjustments at financial institutions can explain real asset price dynamics. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Does economic inequality affect redistributive policy? This paper turns to U.S. county data on land inequality over the period 1890 to 1930 to help address this fundamental question in political economy. Redistributive policy was primarily decided at the local level during this period, making county-level data particularly informative. Examining within-state variation also reduces the potential impact of latent institutional and political variables. The paper also uses a variety of identification strategies, including historic variables as well as county weather and crop characteristics, as instruments for land inequality. The evidence consistently suggests that greater inequality is significantly associated with less redistribution. This negative relationship is especially large in heavily rural counties, where concentrated landownership implied that landed elites also controlled the majority of economic production.

Abstract We study the impact of the refinancing channel of monetary policy on very small and medium-sized businesses. Using data covering the near universe of these businesses, we find that increased household refinancing reduces the probability that a business exits or exhausts its debt capacity in the calendar year, as well as 6 years after the first exposure. It also helps younger businesses maintain credit relationships. Financial factors, like business liquidity, as well as local demand dependence, amplify these effects, especially for very small businesses. These results suggest that the refinancing channel of monetary policy can have large long-run effects on local economies. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Abstract This paper finds that banks and nonbanks respond differently to increased competition in consumer credit markets. Increased competition and a greater threat of failure induces banks to specialize in relationship business lending, and surviving banks are more profitable. However, nonbanks change their credit policy when faced with more competition and expand credit to riskier borrowers at the extensive margin, resulting in higher default rates. These results show how the effects of competition depend on the form of intermediation. They also suggest that increased competition can cause credit risk to migrate outside the traditional supervisory umbrella.

Abstract Illiquidity in short-term credit markets during the financial crisis might have severely curtailed the supply of nonbank consumer credit. Using a new data set linking every car sold in the United States to the credit supplier involved in each transaction, we find that the collapse of the asset-backed commercial paper market reduced the financing capacity of such nonbank lenders as captive leasing companies in the automobile industry. As a result, car sales in counties that traditionally depended on nonbank lenders declined sharply. Although other lenders increased their supply of credit, the net aggregate effect of illiquidity on car sales is large and negative. We conclude that the decline in auto sales during the financial crisis was caused in part by a credit supply shock driven by the illiquidity of the most important providers of consumer finance in the auto loan market. These results also imply that interventions aimed at arresting illiquidity in short-term credit markets might have helped contain the real effects of the crisis.

Using differences in regulation as a means of identification, we find that a reduction in local financial intermediation capacity reduces the recovery rates on assets of failing banks. It also depresses local land prices and is associated with subsequent distress in nearby banks. Fire sales appear to be one channel through which lower local intermediation capacity reduces the recovery rates on failed banks’ assets. The paper provides a rationale for why bank failures are contagious, and why the value of specialized financial assets could depend on the size of the intermediary market that is available to buy it.

This paper studies the long run effects of financial crises using new bank and town level data from around the Great Depression. We find evidence that banking markets became much more concentrated in areas that experienced a greater initial collapse in the local banking system. There is also evidence that financial regulation after the Great Depression, and in particular limits on bank branching, may have helped to render the effects of the initial collapse persistent. All of this suggests a reason why post-crisis financial regulation, while potentially reducing financial instability, might also have longer run real consequences.

Does credit availability exacerbate asset price inflation? Are there long-run consequences? During the farm land price boom and bust before the Great Depression, we find that credit availability directly inflated land prices. Credit also amplified the relationship between positive fundamentals and land prices, leading to greater indebtedness. When fundamentals soured, areas with higher credit availability suffered a greater fall in land prices and had more bank failures. Land prices and credit availability also remained disproportionately low for decades in these areas, suggesting that leverage might render temporary credit-induced booms and busts persistent. We draw lessons for regulatory policy. (JEL E31, G21, G28, N22, N52, Q12, Q14)

Abstract We show that widely used macroprudential regulations that rely on historical cost accounting (HCA) to insulate banks’ balance sheets from financial market volatility significantly affect the transmission of monetary policy onto bank lending. Using detailed supervisory data from Italian banks, we find that HCA mutes the transmission of quantitative easing and other monetary policies that affect the long end of the yield curve, weakening the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing firm credit constraints. We suggest alternative policies that have the benefits of HCA but allow monetary policy to pass through.

This paper investigates the impact of unconventional monetary policy on firm financial constraints using the maturity extension program (MEP). Consistent with bond market segmentation and limits to arbitrage, around the MEP's announcement, stock prices rose for those firms more dependent on longer-term debt. These firms also issued more long-term debt during the MEP and expanded employment and investment. There is also evidence of “reach for yield” behavior, as the demand for riskier corporate debt also increased. Our results suggest that unconventional monetary policy might have relaxed financial constraints for some firms by inducing gap-filling behavior and affecting bond market risk premia.