Zombie lending, labor hoarding, and local industry growth

IF 1.3 4区经济学 Q3 ECONOMICS

Japan and the World Economy Pub Date : 2024-06-23 DOI:10.1016/j.japwor.2024.101266

Jeff Kin Wai Cheung , Masami Imai

引用次数: 0

Abstract

After the bursting of real estate bubbles in 1991, Japanese banks continued lending to unviable firms to conceal problem loans. We revisit Japan’s experience and propose a new mechanism via which banks’ loan-evergreening policy undermines allocative efficiency across industries by focusing on construction and real estate loans. Namely, banks’ continuing support for construction and real estate firms encourages labor hoarding in unviable construction projects. Since construction projects predominantly use low-skilled workers, banks’ loan-evergreening policy in these troubled sectors may depress other low-skilled industries. Based on the industry-level data in each of Japan’s 47 prefectures from 1992 to 1996, we document empirical facts consistent with this hypothesis. On average, low-skilled industries experienced disproportionately slower output and employment growth and more sluggish growth in the number of new establishments in prefectures where the share of bank loans to local construction/real estate sectors increased more after construction boom ended.

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僵尸贷款、劳动力囤积和地方产业增长

1991 年房地产泡沫破灭后，日本的银行为了掩盖问题贷款，继续向无法生存的企业发放贷款。我们重新审视了日本的经验，并提出了一种新的机制，即银行的贷款常青政策通过关注建筑和房地产贷款来破坏各行业的配置效率。也就是说，银行对建筑和房地产企业的持续支持会鼓励劳动力囤积在不可行的建筑项目中。由于建筑项目主要使用低技能工人，银行在这些问题行业的贷款常青政策可能会抑制其他低技能行业的发展。根据 1992 年至 1996 年日本 47 个都道府县的行业数据，我们记录了与这一假设相符的经验事实。平均而言，在建筑业繁荣期结束后，银行对当地建筑/房地产行业的贷款份额增加较多的都道府县，低技能行业的产出和就业增长都不成比例地放缓，新设企业数量的增长也更加缓慢。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Japan and the World Economy ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

2.60

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

46 days

期刊介绍： The increase in Japan share of international trade and financial transactions has had a major impact on the world economy in general and on the U.S. economy in particular. The new economic interdependence between Japan and its trading partners created a variety of problems and so raised many issues that require further study. Japan and the World Economy will publish original research in economics, finance, managerial sciences, and marketing that express these concerns.