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Did bank lending stifle innovation in Europe during the Great Recession?

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  • Oana Peia
  • Davide Romelli

Abstract

Using the 2008-09 Global Financial crisis and the 2012 Euro area sovereign debt crisis as natural experiments, we investigate the effects of contractions in credit supply on R&D spending in a large sample of European firms. Our identification strategy exploits differences in financial constraints across firms, as well as the cross-industry variation in dependence on external finance, to identify a causal effect of bank credit supply on firm investment in innovation. We show that firms that are more likely financially constrained, in industries more dependent on external finance, have a disproportionally lower growth rate of R&D spending, as well as lower R&D intensity and share of R&D investment in total investment during periods of tight credit supply. These results are robust to different proxies of financial constraints, model specifications and fixed-effects identification strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Oana Peia & Davide Romelli, 2019. "Did bank lending stifle innovation in Europe during the Great Recession?," Working Papers 201926, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201926
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10197/11198
    File Function: First version, 2019
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial frictions; Investment; Innovation; R&D spending;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid

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