We study how banks’ exposure to a sovereign crisis gets transmitted onto the corporate sector. To do so, we use data on the universe of banks and firms in Argentina during the crisis of 2001. We build a model characterized by matching frictions in which firms establish (long-term) relationships with banks that are subject to balance sheet disruptions. Credit relationships with banks more exposed to the crisis suffer the most. However, this relationship-level effect overstates the true cost of the crisis since profitable firms (e.g., exporters after a devaluation) might find it optimal to switch lenders, reducing the negative impact on overall credit and activity. Using linked bank-firm and firm-level data, we find evidence largely consistent with our theory.

中文翻译：

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围绕主权违约和货币危机的银行关系网络

我们研究了银行面对主权危机的风险如何传递到公司部门。为此，我们使用2001年危机期间阿根廷银行和公司的整体数据。我们建立了一个模型，其特征是匹配摩擦，在该摩擦中，公司与受资产负债表中断的银行建立（长期）关系。与银行之间的信贷关系受危机影响最大。但是，这种关系级的影响夸大了危机的真实成本，因为有利润的公司（例如，贬值后的出口商）可能会发现转贷方的最佳选择，从而减少了对整体信贷和活动的负面影响。通过使用关联的银行公司数据和公司数据，我们发现证据与我们的理论基本一致。