企业资产负债表流动性、货币政策冲击与投资动态

摘要

This paper evaluates the role of firms’ balance sheet liquidity in the transmission of monetary policy to investment. I estimate that in response to contractionary monetary policy shocks, both firms with higher leverage or with fewer liquid assets reduce investment relative to others. However, controlling for liquid assets, leverage loses its significance in explaining such heterogeneity while liquid assets remain important conditional on leverage. To explain these results, I introduce fixed issuance costs on long-term debt financing in an otherwise conventional general equilibrium model of heterogeneous firms and borrowing constraints. In the calibrated model, balance sheet liquidity predicts investment sensitivity to corporate debt rates better than leverage. Fixed issuance costs give rise to relatively wealthy firms who are not borrowing constrained but exhibit large marginal propensities to invest out of liquid income. This can considerably amplify the aggregate effects of shocks and policies which affect firms’ cash flows.