Abstract Does the structure of financial systems influence the employment respo0nse to adverse shocks? Using (a) county-industry employment data differentiated by firm size and (b) high-frequency county employment data differentiated by income, we find that employment at small firms, employment of low-income workers, and overall employment fell less in counties with higher proportions of small banks in response to the pandemic. Furthermore, small banks lend more to small businesses than large banks, above and beyond government-guaranteed PPP loans. Evidence suggests that small banks cushioned small firms and low-income workers from the adverse effects of the pandemic. (JEL G21, E24, E32, J21, H12)

In a theoretical context where innovators borrow loans or settle for state-owned enterprise (SOE) sponsorship for their projects, we examine the effects of banking prudential regulations and their interaction with corporate leverage on the patenting partnership choice in China using a unique matched patent-firm-bank loan dataset for 15,623 observations in the 2013–17 period. We use a unique instrumental variable (IV) strategy to identify idiosyncratic bank prudential reform shocks associated with the post-2012 Basel III regulation and find prudential metrics (corporate leverage) of the financiers (firms) to positively (negatively) influence SOE patenting partnership choice, though prudential regulation mitigates the latter. Prudential reforms therefore come at a cost of further SOE dominance. However, conditional on an innovation project being SOE sponsored, we find positive spillover effect from the SOE’s employment mandate to loan productivity. Our results are robust across different IV strategies, alternative measures, sub-sample and mechanism analyses.