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From 2011 to 2014, the Brazilian government conducted a heavily advertised major credit expansion program through government banks as part of its effort to stimulate the economy. Using administrative data on individual-level borrowing and spending, we find that the program led to a substantial rise in borrowing by government employees, especially those with low financial literacy. We trace the impact of credit stimulus on borrowers' consumption through the 2011-16 business cycle, and find that the credit stimulus resulted in higher consumption volatility and lower average consumption over the cycle. Our results suggest a potential downside of using household credit as stimulus in emerging markets.

Downward pressure on the natural rate of interest (r*) is often attributed to an increase in saving. This study uses microeconomic data from the SCF+ to explore the relative importance of demographic shifts versus rising income inequality on the evolution of saving behavior in the United States from 1950 to 2019. The evidence suggests that rising income inequality is more important than the aging of the baby boom generation in explaining the decline in r*. Saving rates are significantly higher for high income households within a given birth cohort relative to other households in the same birth cohort, and there has been a large rise in income shares for high income households since the 1980s. The result has been a large rise in saving by high income earners since the 1980s, which is the exact same time period during which r* has fallen. Differences in saving rates across the working age distribution are smaller, and there has not been a consistent monotonic shift in income toward any given age group. Both findings challenge the view that demographic shifts due to the aging of the baby boom generation explain the decline in r*.

From 2011 to 2014, the Brazilian government conducted a heavily advertised major credit expansion program through government banks as part of its effort to stimulate the economy. Using administrative data on individual-level borrowing and spending, we find that the program led to a substantial rise in borrowing by government employees, especially those with low financial literacy. We trace the impact of credit stimulus on borrowers' consumption through the 2011-16 business cycle, and find that the credit stimulus resulted in higher consumption volatility and lower average consumption over the cycle. Our results suggest a potential downside of using household credit as stimulus in emerging markets. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

There has been a large rise in savings by Americans in the top 1% of the income or wealth distribution over the past 40 years, which we call the saving glut of the rich. Instead of financing investment, this saving glut has been associated with dissaving by the non-rich and dissaving by the government. An unveiling of the financial sector reveals that rich households have accumulated substantial financial assets that are direct claims on U.S. government and household debt. State-level analysis shows that the rise in top income shares has been important in generating the rise in savings by the rich. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

We show that firm demand-side factors are strong drivers of procyclical refinancing behavior over the credit cycle using novel data from the Shared National Credit program. Firms are more likely to refinance early when credit conditions are good to keep the effective maturity of their loans long and hedge against having to refinance in tight credit conditions. High credit quality firms are better able to hedge, making their refinancing propensity more sensitive to credit cycles than less creditworthy firms. There is a strong relationship between refinancing a loan, and subsequent growth in capital expenditure, especially when a loan is refinanced early.

How do large scale, involuntary migrations and population exchanges affect sending and receiving communities? We examine the case of the partition of India in which approximately 17 million people moved within four years, resulting in one of the largest and most rapid population exchanges in human history. We find large effects due to the migration on a district's educational, occupational, and gender composition. Due to higher education levels amongst migrants, districts with 10 per cent greater inflows saw their literacy rates increase by 3 percentage points, while a 10 per cent increase in outflows reduced literacy by 1.2 percentage points. Due to disparities in the amount of land vacated by migrants, Indian districts with 10 per cent greater inflows saw a decline of 11 per centin agricultural occupations. Districts that experienced high inflows and outflows also experienced changes in gender composition. While the partition, driven along religious lines, increased religious homogenization within communities, our results suggest that this was accompanied by increased educational and occupational differences within religious groups. We conclude that these compositional effects, in addition to an aggregate population impact, are probably features of involuntary migrations and population exchanges and, as in the case of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, can have important long-term consequences.

Countries become more politically polarized and fractionalized following financial crises, reducing the likelihood of major financial reforms precisely when they might have especially large benefits. The evidence from a large sample of countries provides strong support for the hypotheses that following a financial crisis, voters become more ideologically extreme and ruling coalitions become weaker, independently of whether they were initially in power. The evidence that increased polarization and weaker governments reduce the chances of financial reform and that financial crises lead to legislative gridlock and anemic reform is less clear-cut. The US debt overhang resolution is discussed as an illustration. (JEL D72, E32, E44, G01, H63)

We examine the effects of constituents, special interests, and ideology on congressional voting on two of the most significant pieces of legislation in US economic history. Representatives whose constituents experience a sharp increase in mortgage defaults are more likely to support the Foreclosure Prevention Act, especially in competitive districts. Interestingly, representatives are more sensitive to defaults of their own-party constituents. Special interests in the form of higher campaign contributions from the financial industry increase the likelihood of supporting the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. However, ideologically conservative representatives are less responsive to both constituent and special interests. (JEL D72, G21, G28)

We show that institutions that promote financial development ease borrowing constraints by lowering the collateral spread and shifting the composition of acceptable collateral towards firm-specific assets. Collateral spread is defined as the difference in collateralization rates between high- and low-risk borrowers. The average collateral spread is large but declines rapidly with improvements in financial development driven by stronger institutions. We also show that the composition of collateralizable assets shifts towards non-specific assets (e.g., land) with borrower risk. However, the shift is considerably smaller in developed financial markets, enabling risky borrowers to use a larger variety of assets as collateral.

We exploit an unexpected inflow of liquidity in an emerging market to study how capital is intermediated to firms. We find that backward-looking credit limit constraints imposed by banks make it difficult for firms to borrow, despite readily available bank liquidity, healthy aggregate demand, and a sharply falling cost of capital. The resulting aggregate failure to extend and retain capital in the economy suggests that agency costs that force banks to rely on sticky balance-sheet-based credit limits prevent emerging economies from effectively intermediating capital. The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org., Oxford University Press.

Theory suggests that greater hierarchical distance between a subordinate and his boss makes it more difficult to share abstract and subjective information in decision making. A novel dataset put together from credit dossiers of large corporate loan applicants enables us to observe the information collected by loan officers, and how it is used by the ultimate loan approving officer. We find that greater hierarchical/geographical distance between the information collecting agent and the loan approving officer leads to less reliance on subjective information and more on objective information. By exploiting nonlinearities in the "assignment rules" that determine an applicant's hierarchical distance, and using information collecting agent fixed effects, we show that our result cannot be driven by endogenous assignment of applicants. We also find that higher frequency of interactions between the information collecting agent and loan approving officer, both over time and through geographical proximity, helps mitigate the effects of hierarchical distance on information use. Our results show that hierarchical distance influences information use, and highlights the importance of "human touch" in communication. The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.

We use individual level credit bureau data to document which individuals saw the biggest rise in household debt from 2000 to 2007 and the biggest rise in defaults from 2007 to 2010. Growth in household debt from 2000 to 2007 was substantially larger for individuals with the lowest initial credit scores. However, initial debt levels were lower for individuals in the lowest 20% of the initial credit score distribution. As a result, the contribution to the total dollar rise in household debt was strongest among individuals in the 20th to 60th percentile of the initial credit score distribution. Consistent with the importance of home-equity based borrowing, the increase in debt is especially large among individuals in the lowest 60% of the credit score distribution living in high house price growth zip codes. In contrast, the borrowing of individuals in the top 20% of the credit score distribution is completely unresponsive to higher house price growth. In terms of defaults, the evidence is unambiguous: both default rates and the share of total delinquent debt is largest among individuals with low initial credit scores. The bottom 40% of the credit score distribution is responsible for 73% of the total amount of delinquent debt in 2007, and 68% of the total in 2008. Individuals in the top 40% of the initial credit score distribution never make up more than 15% of total delinquencies, even in 2009 at the height of the default crisis.

We use individual level credit bureau data to document which individuals saw the biggest rise in household debt from 2000 to 2007 and the biggest rise in defaults from 2007 to 2010. Growth in household debt from 2000 to 2007 was substantially larger for individuals with the lowest initial credit scores. However, initial debt levels were lower for individuals in the lowest 20% of the initial credit score distribution. As a result, the contribution to the total dollar rise in household debt was strongest among individuals in the 20th to 60th percentile of the initial credit score distribution. Consistent with the importance of home-equity based borrowing, the increase in debt is especially large among individuals in the lowest 60% of the credit score distribution living in high house price growth zip codes. In contrast, the borrowing of individuals in the top 20% of the credit score distribution is completely unresponsive to higher house price growth. In terms of defaults, the evidence is unambiguous: both default rates and the share of total delinquent debt is largest among individuals with low initial credit scores. The bottom 40% of the credit score distribution is responsible for 73% of the total amount of delinquent debt in 2007, and 68% of the total in 2008. Individuals in the top 40% of the initial credit score distribution never make up more than 15% of total delinquencies, even in 2009 at the height of the default crisis.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

We use the Shared National Credit data on syndicate loans to investigate U.S. firms’ refinancing behavior over the last two decades. As credit conditions tighten, refinancing likelihood goes down and draw down on loan commitments increases sharply. Surprisingly, refinancing propensity is most sensitive to credit market conditions for credit worthy firms. We show that this is a result of active maturity management by credit worthy firms to avoid being exposed to liquidity risk. Credit worthy firms refinance early at a significantly higher rate when credit conditions are good in order to keep the effective maturity of their loans long. They can then afford to refinance at a lower rate when credit conditions tighten. We show that these results are driven by variation in credit market conditions and not business cycle fluctuation.

For policy and academia it is crucial to quantify the real effects of the bank lending channel. We analyze the impact of securitization of real estate assets on the supply of credit to non real-estate firms, including risk-taking, and the associated real effects. For identification, we use the credit register of Spain, matched with firm- and bank-level balance-sheet data, and generalize the Khwaja and Mian (2008)’s loan-level estimator to firm-level in order to identify the real aggregate effects of the bank lending channel. The robust results suggest a strong impact on credit supply to non real-estate firms of banks’ ability to securitize real-estate assets. However, this strong loan-level credit channel is neutralized by firm-level equilibrium dynamics in good times. In consequence, we find no real and credit effects at the firm-level. Importantly, securitization implies higher bank risk-taking, both by relaxing lending standards of existing borrowers – cheaper and less collateralized credit with longer maturity – and by a credit expansion on the extensive margin to first-time bank borrowers that substantially default more.

We construct the topology of business networks across the population of firms in an emerging economy, Pakistan, and estimate the value that membership in large yet diffuse networks brings in terms of access to bank credit and improving financial viability. We link two firms if they have a common director. The resulting topology includes a "giant network" that is order of magnitudes larger than the second largest network. While it displays "small world" properties and comprises 5 percent of all firms, it accesses two-thirds of all bank credit. We estimate the value of joining this giant network by exploiting "incidental" entry and exit of firms over time. Membership increases total external financing by 16.6 percent, reduces the propensity to enter financial distress by 9.5 percent, and better insures firms against industry and location shocks. Firms that join improve financial access by borrowing more from new lenders, particularly those already lending to their (new) giant-network neighbors. Network benefits also depend critically on where a firm connects to in the network and on the firm's pre-existing strength.

While banks may change their supply of credit due to bank balance sheet shocks (the local lending channel), firms can react by adjusting their sources of financing in equilibrium (the aggregate lending channel). We formalize a methodology for separately estimating these effects. We estimate the local and aggregate lending channel effects of the banks' ability to securitize real estate assets on non-real estate firms in Spain. We show that equilibrium dynamics nullify the strong local lending channel effect on credit quantity for firms with multiple banking relationships. However, credit terms for these firms become significantly more favorable due to securitization. Securitization also leads to an expansion in credit on the extensive margin towards first-time bank clients, and these borrowers are significantly more likely to end up in default. Finally, the 2008 collapse in securitization leads to a reversal in local lending channel.

A key rationale for fiscal stimulus is to boost consumption when aggregate demand is perceived to be inefficiently low. We examine the ability of the government to increase consumption by evaluating the impact of the 2009 "Cash for Clunkers" program on short and medium run auto purchases. Our empirical strategy exploits variation across U.S. cities in ex-ante exposure to the program as measured by the number of "clunkers" in the city as of the summer of 2008. We find that the program induced the purchase of an additional 360,000 cars in July and August of 2009. However, almost all of the additional purchases under the program were pulled forward from the very near future; the effect of the program on auto purchases is almost completely reversed by as early as March 2010 - only seven months after the program ended. The effect of the program on auto purchases was significantly more short-lived than previously suggested. We also find no evidence of an effect on employment, house prices, or household default rates in cities with higher exposure to the program.

We examine how special interests, measured by campaign contributions from the mortgage industry, and constituent interests, measured by the share of subprime borrowers in a congressional district, may have influenced U.S. government policy toward subprime mortgage credit expansion from 2002 to 2007. Beginning in 2002, mortgage industry campaign contributions increasingly targeted U.S. representatives from districts with a large fraction of subprime borrowers. During the expansion years, mortgage industry campaign contributions and the share of subprime borrowers in a congressional district increasingly predicted congressional voting behavior on housing related legislation. Such patterns do not hold for non-mortgage financial industry. The evidence suggests that both subprime mortgage lenders and subprime mortgage borrowers influenced government policy toward subprime mortgage credit expansion.

A key rationale for fiscal stimulus is to boost consumption when aggregate demand is perceived to be inefficiently low. We examine the ability of the government to increase consumption by evaluating the impact of the 2009 “Cash for Clunkers” program on short and medium run auto purchases. Our empirical strategy exploits variation across U.S. cities in ex-ante exposure to the program as measured by the number of “clunkers” in the city as of the summer of 2008. We find that the program induced the purchase of an additional 360,000 cars in July and August of 2009. However, almost all of the additional purchases under the program were pulled forward from the very near future; the effect of the program on auto purchases is almost completely reversed by as early as March 2010 – only seven months after the program ended. The effect of the program on auto purchases was significantly more short-lived than previously suggested. We also find no evidence of an effect on employment, house prices, or household default rates in cities with higher exposure to the program.

Large scale migrations, especially involuntary ones, can have a substantial impact on the demographics of both sending and receiving communities. We estimate the impact of the 1947 Indian subcontinent partition, one of the largest and most rapid population exchanges in human history. Comparing neighboring districts better isolates the effect of the migratory flows from secular changes. We find large effects on a districts' educational, occupational, and gender composition within four years. Due to higher education levels amongst migrants, districts with greater inflows saw their literacy rates increase by 16% more while outflows reduced literacy rates by as much as 20%. With less land vacated by those who left Indian Punjab, Indian districts with large inflows saw a decline of 70% in the growth of agricultural occupations. Affected districts also experienced large changes in gender composition with a relatively large drop in percentage men in Indian districts that experienced large outflows, and in Pakistani districts with large inflows. While the partition, driven along religious lines, increased religious homogenization within communities, our results suggest that this was accompanied by increased educational and occupational differences within religious groups. We hypothesize that these compositional effects, in addition to an aggregate population impact, are likely features of involuntary migrations and, as in the case of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, can have important long-term consequences.

We examine the determinants of congressional voting behavior on two of the most signi…cant pieces of federal legislation in U.S. economic history: the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008 and the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. We …nd evidence that constituent interests and special interests in‡uence voting patterns during the crisis. Representatives from districts experiencing an increase in mortgage default rates are signi…cantly more likely to vote in favor of the AHRFPA. They are precise in responding only to mortgage related constituent defaults, and are signi…cantly more sensitive to defaults of their own-party constituents. Increased campaign contributions from the …nancial services industry is associated with a higher likelihood of voting in favor of the EESA, a bill which transfers

We show that institutions that promotional development ease borrowing constraints by lowering the collateral spread, and shifting the composition of acceptable collateral towards firm-specific assets. Using a novel cross-country loan-level data set, we estimate collateral spread as the difference in rates of collateralization between high and low risk borrowers in a given economy. The average collateral spread is large but declines rapidly with financial development. A one standard deviation improvement in financial development due to stronger institutions leads to a reduction in collateral spread by one-half. We also find that the composition of collateralizable assets shifts towards non-specific assets (e.g. land) with increased risk. However, this shift is considerably smaller in more developed financial markets, thus enabling risky borrowers to use a larger variety of assets as collateral.

The massive growth in computing since the 1980s and 1990s has revolutionized data gathering and how people transact with one another. The result is that practically every economic and financial transaction is recorded somewhere by someone and can be linked to the individuals undertaking the

How far can institutional mobility of multi-national banks address the financial development concerns of poor economies? Using a new quarterly panel data set of 80,000 loans over 7 years, I show that greater cultural and geographical distance between a foreign bank's head quarter and the local branches, leads it to further avoid lending to informationally difficult yet fundamentally sound firms requiring relational contracting. Greater distance also makes them less likely to bilaterally renegotiate, and less successful at recovering defaults. Differences in bank size, legal institutions, risk preferences, or unobserved borrower heterogeneity cannot explain these results. The distance constraints identified in this paper can be economically large enough to permanently exclude certain sectors of the economy from financing by foreign banks.