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Journal of Finance Vol. 78 No. 2 2023

Monetary Stimulus amidst the Infrastructure Investment Spree: Evidence from China's Loan‐Level Data

Kaiji Chen; Haoyu Gao; PATRICK HIGGINS; Daniel F. Waggoner; Tao Zha1,2

1 Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta · 2 Chinese University of Hong Kong

Abstract

We study how a fiscal expansion via infrastructure investment influences the dynamic impacts of monetary stimulus on credit allocation. We develop a two‐stage approach and apply it to the Chinese economy with a confidential loan‐level data set that covers all sectors. We find that infrastructure investment significantly weakened monetary policy's transmission to credit allocated to private firms, while reinforcing the monetary effects on loans to state‐owned firms. This fiscal‐monetary interaction channel is key to understanding the preferential credit access enjoyed by state‐owned firms during the stimulus period. Consequently, monetary stimulus crowded out private investment and decreased capital allocation efficiency.

DOI
10.1111/jofi.13204
Volume
78
Issue
2
Pages
1147-1204
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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