IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jfinqa/v58y2023i6p2657-2691_12.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Relationship Lending and Employment Decisions in Firms’ Bad Times

Author

Listed:
  • Murro, Pierluigi
  • Oliviero, Tommaso
  • Zazzaro, Alberto

Abstract

Using firm-level survey information, we investigate whether relationship lending affects firms’ employment decisions in the face of negative sales shock. We find that firms with a durable relationship with their main bank display significantly less employment growth sensitivity to such shocks, especially where these are transitory. The result is stronger for younger and smaller firms that benefit from tighter bank-firm relationships, and for firms in sectors or economic environments where the costs of employment adjustment are greater. Our findings indicate that relationship lending provides liquidity insurance to firms to meet their demand for labor hoarding.

Suggested Citation

  • Murro, Pierluigi & Oliviero, Tommaso & Zazzaro, Alberto, 2023. "Relationship Lending and Employment Decisions in Firms’ Bad Times," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 58(6), pages 2657-2691, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jfinqa:v:58:y:2023:i:6:p:2657-2691_12
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022109022000928/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pietro Alessandrini & Andrea F. Presbitero & Alberto Zazzaro, 2010. "Bank size or distance: what hampers innovation adoption by SMEs?," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(6), pages 845-881, November.
    2. Jacobson, Louis S & LaLonde, Robert J & Sullivan, Daniel G, 1993. "Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 685-709, September.
    3. Ryan Banerjee & Enrico Sette & Leonardo Gambacorta, 2017. "The real effects of relationship lending," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1133, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    4. Arnoud W. A. Boot & Anjan V. Thakor, 2000. "Can Relationship Banking Survive Competition?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 679-713, April.
    5. Andrew Ellul & Marco Pagano & Fabiano Schivardi, 2018. "Employment and Wage Insurance within Firms: Worldwide Evidence," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(4), pages 1298-1340.
    6. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2009. "Does Local Financial Development Matter?," Springer Books, in: Damiano Bruno Silipo (ed.), The Banks and the Italian Economy, chapter 0, pages 31-66, Springer.
    7. Patrick Bolton & Xavier Freixas & Leonardo Gambacorta & Paolo Emilio Mistrulli, 2016. "Relationship and Transaction Lending in a Crisis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(10), pages 2643-2676.
    8. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7244 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Hamish Low & Costas Meghir & Luigi Pistaferri, 2010. "Wage Risk and Employment Risk over the Life Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1432-1467, September.
    10. Andrea Bassanini & Thomas Breda & Eve Caroli & Antoine Rebérioux, 2013. "Working in Family Firms: Paid Less but More Secure? Evidence from French Matched Employer-Employee Data," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 66(2), pages 433-466, April.
    11. Rajan, Raghuram G, 1992. "Insiders and Outsiders: The Choice between Informed and Arm's-Length Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1367-1400, September.
    12. Bartoli, Francesca & Ferri, Giovanni & Murro, Pierluigi & Rotondi, Zeno, 2013. "SME financing and the choice of lending technology in Italy: Complementarity or substitutability?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5476-5485.
    13. Sharpe, Steven A, 1990. "Asymmetric Information, Bank Lending, and Implicit Contracts: A Stylized Model of Customer Relationships," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1069-1087, September.
    14. Ferri, Giovanni & Murro, Pierluigi & Peruzzi, Valentina & Rotondi, Zeno, 2019. "Bank lending technologies and credit availability in Europe: What can we learn from the crisis?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 128-148.
    15. David Sraer & David Thesmar, 2007. "Performance and Behavior of Family Firms: Evidence from the French Stock Market," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(4), pages 709-751, June.
    16. D'Aurizio, Leandro & Oliviero, Tommaso & Romano, Livio, 2015. "Family firms, soft information and bank lending in a financial crisis," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 279-292.
    17. Azariadis, Costas, 1975. "Implicit Contracts and Underemployment Equilibria," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(6), pages 1183-1202, December.
    18. Rosenfeld, Claire M., 2014. "The effect of banking relationships on the future of financially distressed firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 403-418.
    19. Petersen, Mitchell A & Rajan, Raghuram G, 1994. "The Benefits of Lending Relationships: Evidence from Small Business Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-37, March.
    20. Herrera, Ana María & Minetti, Raoul, 2007. "Informed finance and technological change: Evidence from credit relationships," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 223-269, January.
    21. Marco Cucculelli & Valentina Peruzzi & Alberto Zazzaro, 2019. "Relational capital in lending relationships: evidence from European family firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 277-301, January.
    22. repec:oup:qjecon:v:129:y:2013:i:1:p:1-59 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Berger, Allen N & Udell, Gregory F, 1992. "Some Evidence on the Empirical Significance of Credit Rationing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 1047-1077, October.
    24. Hoshi, Takeo & Kashyap, Anil & Scharfstein, David, 1990. "The role of banks in reducing the costs of financial distress in Japan," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 67-88, September.
    25. Pavitt, Keith, 1984. "Sectoral patterns of technical change: Towards a taxonomy and a theory," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 13(6), pages 343-373, December.
    26. Vasso Ioannidou & Steven Ongena, 2010. "“Time for a Change”: Loan Conditions and Bank Behavior when Firms Switch Banks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1847-1877, October.
    27. Enrico Sette & Giorgio Gobbi, 2015. "Relationship Lending During A Financial Crisis," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 453-481, June.
    28. Martin Neil Baily, 1974. "Wages and Employment under Uncertain Demand," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(1), pages 37-50.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pierluigi Murro & Valentina Peruzzi, 2022. "Relationship lending and the use of trade credit: the role of relational capital and private information," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 327-360, June.
    2. Patrick Behr & Lars Norden & Raquel Oliveira, 2020. "Labor and Finance: the effect of bank relationships," Working Papers Series 534, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lončarski, Igor & Marinč, Matej, 2020. "The political economy of relationship banking," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    2. Murro, Pierluigi & Peruzzi, Valentina, 2019. "Family firms and access to credit. Is family ownership beneficial?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 173-187.
    3. Bertrand, Jérémie & Murro, Pierluigi, 2022. "Firm–bank “odd couples” and trade credit: Evidence from Italian small- and medium-sized enterprises," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    4. Pierluigi Murro & Valentina Peruzzi, 2022. "Relationship lending and the use of trade credit: the role of relational capital and private information," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 327-360, June.
    5. Allen N. Berger & Christa H. S. Bouwman & Lars Norden & Raluca A. Roman & Gregory F. Udell & Teng Wang, 2024. "Piercing through Opacity: Relationships and Credit Card Lending to Consumers and Small Businesses during Normal Times and the COVID-19 Crisis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 132(2), pages 484-551.
    6. Ferri, Giovanni & Murro, Pierluigi, 2015. "Do firm–bank ‘odd couples’ exacerbate credit rationing?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 231-251.
    7. Beatriz, Mikael & Coffinet, Jérôme & Nicolas, Théo, 2022. "Relationship lending and SMEs’ funding costs over the cycle: Why diversification of borrowing matters," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    8. Alessandro Gambini & Alberto Zazzaro, 2013. "Long-lasting bank relationships and growth of firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 977-1007, May.
    9. Ferri, Giovanni & Minetti, Raoul & Murro, Pierluigi, 2019. "Credit Relationships in the great trade collapse. Micro evidence from Europe," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    10. Jeremie Bertrand & Pierluigi Murro, 2018. "Is trade credit a substitute for relationship lending credit?," CERBE Working Papers wpC25, CERBE Center for Relationship Banking and Economics.
    11. Djedidi-Kooli, Salima, 2009. "L’accès au financement des PME en France : quel rôle joué par la structure du système bancaire ?," Economics Thesis from University Paris Dauphine, Paris Dauphine University, number 123456789/8354 edited by Etner, François.
    12. Dereeper, Sébastien & Lobez, Frédéric & Statnik, Jean-Christophe, 2020. "Bank credit rates across the business cycle: Evidence from a French cooperative contracts database," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    13. Andrew Ellul & Marco Pagano & Fabiano Schivardi, 2018. "Employment and Wage Insurance within Firms: Worldwide Evidence," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(4), pages 1298-1340.
    14. Choudhary, M. Ali & Jain, Anil, 2022. "Finance and inequality: The distributional impacts of bank credit rationing," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    15. Zachary Bethune & Guillaume Rocheteau & Tsz-Nga Wong & Cathy Zhang, 2022. "Lending Relationships and Optimal Monetary Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(4), pages 1833-1872.
    16. Angori, Gabriele & Aristei, David & Gallo, Manuela, 2020. "Banking relationships, firm-size heterogeneity and access to credit: Evidence from European firms," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 33(C).
    17. Pagano, Marco, 2020. "Risk Sharing Within the Firm: A Primer," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 12(2), pages 117-198, October.
    18. Ferri, Giovanni & Murro, Pierluigi & Pini, Marco, 2020. "Credit rationing and the relationship between family businesses and banks in Italy," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    19. Pasquale Marcello Falcone, 2018. "Green investment strategies and bank-firm relationship: a firm-level analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(4), pages 2225-2239.
    20. Gareth Anderson & Saleem Bahaj & Matthieu Chavaz & Angus Foulis & Gabor Pinter, 2023. "Lending Relationships and the Collateral Channel," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(3), pages 851-887.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jfinqa:v:58:y:2023:i:6:p:2657-2691_12. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jfq .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.