TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kashyap,Anil K
AU  - Lamont,Owen A.
AU  - Stein,Jeremy C.
TI  - Credit Conditions and the Cyclical Behavior of Inventories: A Case Studyof the 1981-82 Recession
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 4211
PY  - 1992
Y2  - November 1992
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4211
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4211.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Anil Kashyap
Booth School of Business
University of Chicago
5807 S. Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 773/702-7260
Fax: 773/702-0458
E-Mail: anil.kashyap@chicagobooth.edu

Owen Lamont
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138
E-Mail: owen.lamont@yale.edu

Jeremy C. Stein
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Littauer 209
Cambridge, MA  02138
Tel: 617/496-6455
Fax: 617/496-7352
E-Mail: jeremy_stein@harvard.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 1993-02-01
AB  - This paper examines micro data on U.S. firms' inventories during different macroeconomic episodes. Much of the analysis focuses on the 1981-82 recession, a recession that was apparently precipitated by tight monetary policy. We find important cross-sectional effects in this period: firms that were "bank-dependent" were much more prone to shed inventories than their non-bank-dependent counterparts. In contrast, such cross-sectional differences are largely absent during a period of "loose" monetary policy later in the 1980s. Our findings are consistent with the view that 1) there is a bank lending channel of monetary policy transmission; 2) the lending channel is likely to be particularly important in explaining inventory fluctuations during downturns.
ER  -