Employing a dataset of 1,160 Indian firms, we study the impact of global financing conditions on firms’ borrowings abroad across different phases of global credit. While the abundant credit in the post global financial crisis period allowed firms to take advantage of relatively cheap financing abroad, we show that firms’ access to external finance has declined since 2013. We find that since 2013, lenders are differentiating across borrowers and it is specifically the less risky and more profitable firms that are increasing their foreign borrowings even at the times of higher global risk. We do not find evidence of regional and domestic credit offsetting this global effect. Furthermore, we find that the reduced access to external finance in the post-2013 period is associated with a decline in firms’ real investment activities, highlighting the real effects of global credit dynamics.

The paper investigates the impact of global liquidity on house prices around the world using a novel proxy measured by the funding availability to global banks in the main financial centers. We find supporting evidence that global conditions from the financial centers are transmitted to local banks through bank flows. Focusing on the repo markets in the US, Europe, and the UK, over the period 2000–2014 and using a panel VAR, we find that liquidity shocks impact house prices in both emerging and advanced economies. However, countries’ exposure to liquidity shocks can be mitigated by monetary policy, and by various general and house market specific macroprudential policies. We document strikingly different effectiveness of these policies in advanced and emerging markets.