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Small and Large Firms over the Business Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • Neil Mehrotra

    (Brown University)

  • Nicolas Crouzet

    (Northwestern University)

Abstract

We analyze the behavior of small and large firms over the business cycle, using new firm-level quarterly data from the US Census Bureau covering the balance sheets and income statements of all firms in the US manufacturing sector. We find that sales, inventory growth, and investment rates are more cyclical among smaller firms. The differential cyclicality holds after controlling for industry effects, and is driven by the behavior of firms in the top 1\% of the asset distribution. We show that the result survives when directly controlling for firm leverage, liquidity, or bank dependency, suggesting that the excess cyclicality of small firms may not be driven by differences in access to credit. Additionally, we find that independent of size, firms with zero debt exhibit less sensitivity to the business cycle than positive leverage firms. Finally, we assess the importance of the excess cylicality of small firms for aggregate fluctuations in sales, inventory, and investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Neil Mehrotra & Nicolas Crouzet, 2017. "Small and Large Firms over the Business Cycle," 2017 Meeting Papers 600, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed017:600
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    Cited by:

    1. de Groot, Oliver & Hauptmeier, Sebastian & Holm-Hadulla, Fédéric & Nikalexi, Katerina, 2020. "Monetary policy and regional inequality," Working Paper Series 2385, European Central Bank.
    2. Boar, Corina & Knowles, Matthew, 2024. "Optimal taxation of risky entrepreneurial capital," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    3. Corina Boar & Virgiliu Midrigan, 2019. "Markups and Inequality," NBER Working Papers 25952, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Xing Guo, 2020. "Identifying Aggregate Shocks with Micro-level Heterogeneity: Financial Shocks and Investment Fluctuation," Staff Working Papers 20-17, Bank of Canada.
    5. Bahaj, Saleem Abubakr & Foulis, Angus & Pinter, Gabor & Surico, Paolo, 2018. "Employment and the collateral channel of monetary policy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100934, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Ester Faia & Vincenzo Pezone, 2024. "The Cost of Wage Rigidity," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(1), pages 301-339.
    7. Cezar, Rafael & Gigout, Timothée & Tripier, Fabien, 2020. "Cross-border investments and uncertainty: Firm-level evidence," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    8. 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.
    9. Darmouni, Olivier & Geisecke, Oliver & Rodnyanky, Alexander, 2019. "The Bond Lending Channel of Monetary Policy," MPRA Paper 95141, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Gigout, Timothee & Bricongne, Jean-Charles, 2019. "Explaining the Persistent Effect of Demand Uncertainty on Firm Growth," MPRA Paper 94228, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Cumming, Fergus, 2022. "Mortgage cash-flows and employment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    12. Christina Patterson, 2019. "The Matching Multiplier and the Amplification of Recessions," 2019 Meeting Papers 95, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Ester Faia & Vincenzo Pezone, 2019. "Monetary Policy and the Cost of Wage Rigidity: Evidence from the Stock Market," 2019 Meeting Papers 278, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    14. Grace Weishi Gu & Eswar Prasad, 2018. "New Evidence on Cyclical Variation in Labor Costs in the U.S," NBER Working Papers 24266, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Kalemli-Özcan, Sebnem, 2018. "Leverage over the Life Cycle and Implications for Firm Growth and Shock Responsiveness," CEPR Discussion Papers 13337, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. James Cloyne & Clodomiro Ferreira & Maren Froemel & Paolo Surico, 2023. "Monetary Policy, Corporate Finance, and Investment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(6), pages 2586-2634.
    17. Corina Boar & Matthew Knowles, 2020. "Entrepreneurship, Agency Frictions and Redistributive Capital Taxation," Discussion Paper Series, School of Economics and Finance 202004, School of Economics and Finance, University of St Andrews.
    18. Seungjun Baek, 2020. "Uncertainty, Incentives, and Misallocation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(7), pages 1821-1851, October.
    19. Davide Melcangi, 2018. "The Marginal Propensity to Hire," 2018 Meeting Papers 807, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    20. Nadav Ben Zeev, 2018. "The Tfp Channel Of Credit Supply Shocks," Working Papers 1802, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    21. Emin Dinlersoz & Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan & Henry Hyatt & Veronika Penciakova, 2018. "Leverage over the Firm Life-Cycle, Firm Growth, and Aggregate Fluctuations," NBER Working Papers 25226, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Strauss, Ilan & Yang, Jangho, 2020. "Corporate Secular Stagnation: Empirical Evidence on the Advanced Economy Investment Slowdown," INET Oxford Working Papers 2019-16, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    23. Gigout, Timothee, 2019. "Firm dynamics in an global and uncertain economy," MPRA Paper 96569, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 16 Oct 2019.
    24. Mahbuba Aktar & Mohammad Zoynul Abedin & Anupam Das Gupta, 2021. "The Impact of Monetary Policy Shocks on Corporate Dynamic Investment Activity With Financial Heterogeneity," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440209, February.
    25. Corina Boar & Virgiliu Midrigan, 2020. "Efficient Redistribution," NBER Working Papers 27622, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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