Bank Credit Supply and Firm Innovation

We analyze the causal effect of the credit supply shock to banks induced by interbank market disruptions in the recent financial crisis 2008/2009 on their business customers’ innovation activity. Using a matched bank-firm data set for Germany, we find that having relations with a more severely affected bank seriously hampers firms’ current innovation activities due to funding shortages. Furthermore, we find that firms with a relationship to a less severely affected bank are more likely to initiate new product and process innovations and to reallocate human resources to innovation during the financial crisis.