Credit allocation along the business cycle: evidence from the latest boom bust credit cycle in Spain

Using a dataset that merges information of loan applications from the Spanish CCR with firms’ financial accounts, we find that during the great recession access to credit of firms with weak balance sheets deteriorated relative to other firms. However, contrary to the financial accelerator theory, we find that during the recovery phase after the latest recession access to credit of weaker firms did not improve relative to other firms and it even further deteriorated somewhat. We also provide empirical evidence that lending policies of banks with firms they are exposed to before the lending decision is taken are comparatively less sensitive to public information than those applied to new firms. This result, together with the positive correlation we find between firms’ access to bank loans and the number of firms’ bank credit relationships, might be linked to the existence of private information developed by banks through their interaction with borrowers. We also find that this relationship lending contributed to smooth credit contraction during the crisis.