Credit supply to small businesses may ease financial frictions, helping them grow faster and re-optimize the factor inputs for production, particularly when lumpy and/or long-term investment is required. We study how government loan programs address these two issues by combining the loan-level data with firms’ financial statements. We find that, with additional credit supplied by government, (i) small businesses are able to grow faster than similar firms, (ii) financially constrained firms invest relatively more on capital, and (iii) firms invest in long-term projects. We also find that differences in debt levels are persistent over time, suggesting that private credit supply does not substitute for the government-provided credit.

向小企业提供信贷可以缓解财务摩擦，帮助它们更快地发展并重新优化生产的要素投入，尤其是在需要大量和/或长期投资的情况下。我们通过将贷款水平数据与公司的财务报表相结合，研究政府贷款计划如何解决这两个问题。我们发现，在政府提供额外信贷的情况下，（i） 小企业能够比同类企业增长得更快，（ii） 财务受限的企业对资本的投资相对更多，以及 （iii） 企业投资于长期项目。我们还发现，债务水平的差异随着时间的推移而持续存在，这表明私人信贷供应并不能替代政府提供的信贷。