This paper examines the ex-post performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that obtained small business credit scoring (SBCS) loans, using a unique Japanese firm–bank matched dataset. The ex-post probability of default after the SBCS loan was provided significantly increased for SMEs that obtained an SBCS loan from a transactional lender. Also, the lending attitude of relationship lenders during the recent global financial crisis was more severe if a firm had received an SBCS loan from a transactional lender. These findings suggest that SBCS loans by transactional lenders are more prone to type II errors and detrimental to relationship lenders’ incentive to provide “liquidity insurance.”

Using unique micro data compiled from the real estate registry in Japan, we examine more than 400,000 loan-to-value (LTV) business loan ratios to draw implications for caps on LTV ratios as a macroprudential policy measure. We find that the LTV ratio exhibits counter-cyclicality, behavior that would have severely impeded the efficacy of a simple LTV cap had it been imposed. We also find that borrowers obtaining high-LTV loans are more risky but grew faster than those with lower LTV loans, which implies that a simple fixed cap on LTV ratios might inhibit growing (albeit risky) firms from borrowing.

This study empirically examines the impact of an exogenous decrease in banks’ shareholding on bank loans and firms’ risk-taking, utilizing a regulatory change in Japan relating to banks’ shareholding as an instrument. We find that an exogenous reduction in a bank’s shareholding decreased the bank’s share of loans in the client firm’s total loans, while it increased the volatility of a firm’s return on assets. The reduction in a bank’s shareholding did not affect firm risk as perceived by equity investors or its borrowing terms. These findings are consistent with the prediction that banks hold equity claims over client firms to gain a competitive advantage, and are weakly compatible with the prediction that banks’ shareholding mitigates shareholder–creditor conflict.

This paper examines the effectiveness of Japan's Emergency Credit Guarantee (ECG) Program set up during the financial turmoil following the failure of Lehman Brothers, in increasing credit availability and improving the ex-post performance of small businesses. In particular, using a unique firm–bank matched dataset, the paper examines whether lending relationships enhanced or dampened the effects of the ECG program. It is found that the ECG program significantly improved credit availability for firms using the program. However, when it was a relationship lender (main bank) that extended an ECG loan, the increased availability was partially, if not completely, offset by a decrease in non-ECG loans by the same bank. Further, propensity score matching estimations show that the ex-post performance of firms that received ECG loans from the main bank deteriorated more than that of firms that received non-ECG loans. We do not find such loan “substitution” or performance “deterioration” effects when a non-main bank extended ECG loans. Our findings suggest that close firm–bank relationships may have perverse effects on the efficacy of public credit guarantees.

This paper compares the economic impact of the collateral and bank lending channels in a unified framework by taking advantage of exogenous shocks to firms’ tangible assets and banks’ net worth caused by the massive Tohoku earthquake in 2011. We obtain the following findings: (1) both damage to a firm's tangible assets and to the net worth of its primary bank lead to an increase in the probability of the firm being credit constrained, which lends support to the existence of both the collateral and the bank lending channel; (2) the increase through the bank lending channel is about twice as large as and longer-lasting than that through the collateral channel; (3) the credit constraint has real effects: in terms of the aggregated sales decline, the impact through the bank lending channel is more than four times as large as that through the collateral channel, because the negative impact of damage to banks’ net worth spilled over to firms located outside the earthquake-damaged region. Overall, the bank lending channel played a far more substantial role than the collateral channel in the wake of the earthquake.