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Growing Like Germany: Local Public Debt, Local Banks, Low Private Investment

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  • Stewen, Iryna
  • Hoffmann, Mathias
  • Stiefel, Michael

Abstract

Using a firm-bank panel of more than 1m German firms over 2010-2016, we document that local public bank lending to municipalities crowds out private investment. Our results show how crowding-out can happen in a developed economy characterized by low interest rates and fiscal austerity. Our mechanism relies on two structural features of Germany's banking landscape: First, the geographical segmentation of credit markets for small and medium firms (SME) which are dominated by local banks. Secondly, a special statutory mandate requiring local public banks to lend to municipalities. With yields on local government debt declining to all-time lows, local public banks tried to alleviate stress on their balance sheets by using their local market power to charge higher rates on their SME customers. This crowded out firm investment. Perversely, fiscal consolidation at the state and federal levels contributed to this effect by putting pressure on the budgets of municipal governments which increasingly borrowed from local public banks. Crowding-out lowered aggregate private investment by around 30-40 bio euros per year (or 1 percent of GDP). Thus, we identify a novel channel through which low interest rates can adversely affect bank lending and firm performance. Our results also illustrate how segmented credit markets can amplify negative multiplier effects from fiscal austerity.

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  • Stewen, Iryna & Hoffmann, Mathias & Stiefel, Michael, 2021. "Growing Like Germany: Local Public Debt, Local Banks, Low Private Investment," CEPR Discussion Papers 15912, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15912
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    Cited by:

    1. Ivanov, Ivan T. & Zimmermann, Tom, 2024. "The “Privatization” of municipal debt," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    2. Xiaoming Li & Zheng Liu & Yuchao Peng & Zhiwei Xu, 2024. "The Crowding-In Effects of Local Government Debt in China," Working Paper Series 2024-35, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    3. Bernardo Morais & José-Luis Peydró & Claudia Ruiz-Ortega, 2021. "Expansionary Austerity: Reallocating Credit Amid Fiscal Consolidation," International Finance Discussion Papers 1323, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Asatryan, Zareh & Heinemann, Friedrich & Nover, Justus, 2022. "The other government: State-owned enterprises in Germany and their implications for the core public sector," ZEW Expert Briefs 22-08, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Local public finance; Firm-level investment; Crowding-out; Fiscal austerity; Global and intra-european imbalances;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements
    • H32 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Firm

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