The Real Effects of Credit Supply Shocks: Evidence from an Emerging Economy

Abstract

What role do credit supply shocks (CSS) play in macroeconomic dynamics in emerging economies? We exploit Russia's setting, including the 2014 Western sanctions, and show that a negative CSS normalized to 0.5 p.p. increase in the lending rate leads to a decrease of 2 p.p. in the output growth rate, 1.5 p.p. in the consumption growth rate and 5 p.p. in the investment growth rate within a quarter. The heterogeneity of the household and firm responses to CSS is driven by debt‐to‐income and leverage ratios, with indebted poorer households and larger firms being more sensitive to fluctuations in credit conditions.