We examine the relation between the presence of U.S. government as a major customer and a supplier firm’s loan contract terms, using major corporate customers as a benchmark. We find that firms with major government customers are associated with fewer covenants and a lower likelihood of having performance pricing provisions in their loan contracts. In contrast, we do not find such associations for firms with major corporate customers. Further, we find no evidence that the existence of major government customers is related to the supplier firm’s loan spread, security, or maturity. We conjecture that lenders benefit from the stricter monitoring of the government as a major customer and thus use fewer covenants and performance pricing provisions when lending to firms with major government customers than when lending to those with major corporate customers. We provide evidence consistent with this conjecture.

我们以主要公司客户为基准，研究了美国政府作为主要客户的存在与供应商公司的贷款合同条款之间的关系。我们发现，拥有主要政府客户的公司与较少的契约相关联，并且在其贷款合同中具有绩效定价条款的可能性也较低。相反，对于具有主要公司客户的公司，我们找不到这种关联。此外，我们找不到证据表明主要政府客户的存在与供应商公司的贷款利差，担保或期限有关。我们推测，放贷人将从对政府作为主要客户的更严格的监控中受益，因此，与具有主要公司客户的公司相比，向具有主要政府客户的公司贷款时使用的盟约和绩效定价条款要少。我们提供了与此推测相符的证据。