Firm Quality Dynamics and the Slippery Slope of Credit Intervention

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Li, Wenhao; Li, Ye
• 署名单位: University of Southern California; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Washington; University of Washington Seattle
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6527
• DOI: 10.1093/restud/rdaf100
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: capital reallocation; macroeconomic model; endogenous liquidity; adverse selection; RISK; misallocation; MARKETS; INVESTMENT; management; INNOVATION

摘要

A salient trend in crisis intervention has emerged in recent decades: government and central banks have offered funding directly to nonfinancial firms, bypassing banks and other credit intermediaries. We analyse the long-term consequences of such policies by focussing on firm quality dynamics. In a laissez-faire economy, firms with high productivity are more likely to survive crises than those with low productivity. The government funding support saves more firms but cannot be customized based on firm productivity, dampening the cleansing effect of crises. The policy distortion is self-perpetuating: a downward bias in the firm quality distribution necessitates larger interventions in future crises. Our mechanism is quantitatively important: we show that if policymakers ignore such distortionary effects on firm quality dynamics, the resultant credit intervention would almost double the optimal amount.