The paper examines the causal impact of bank–firm interlocking directorates on a firm’s access to credit. We exploit matched bank–firm panel data containing detailed information on individual loans and on the governing bodies of both the bank and the firm. Identification hinges on the exogenous break up of connections occurring when the supervisory authority places a bank under special administration, resetting its board. For these banks, we compare the dynamics of loans to firms that lost the connection with those of the unconnected firms, chosen through propensity score matching among borrowers from the same banks. We find that the loss of connection is associated with a significant and large drop in the firms’ granted loans, and, in particular, in the credit lines that can be unilaterally modified by the lender in the short term. We also show that the advantages of the connection are due mainly to favouritism, rather than to privileged information flows.

中文翻译：

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失去联系：银行固定联锁局的阴暗面

本文研究了银行－企业联锁董事局对企业获得信贷的因果关系。我们利用匹配的银行－公司面板数据，其中包含有关个人贷款以及银行和公司理事机构的详细信息。识别取决于监管机构将银行置于特别管理之下并重置其董事会时发生的外部连接中断。对于这些银行，我们比较了通过与同一家银行的借款人之间的倾向得分匹配选择的，与失去联系的公司之间失去联系的公司的贷款动态。我们发现，联系的丧失与企业授予的贷款的大幅下降有关，尤其是与贷方可以在短期内单方面修改的信贷额度有关。