Sources of Corporate Financing and Economic Crisis in Korea: A Micro-evidence

Using the firm-level data set, the paper attempts to examine the dynamic patterns in the allocation of credit across firms in recent Korea. In particular, the paper examines the dynamic patterns in the allocation of credit across large and small firms before and after the crisis. The data suggest that large firms, to some extent, are leaving banks and going to the capital market for their financing after the crisis. The data also suggest that profitable small firms are gaining easier access to the credit from financial institutions after the crisis. Is this shift (in the allocation of bank credit from large firms to small firms) due to lenders' choice or due to borrowers' changed incentives? The paper suggests that the improved lending practices of banks, at least partially, contributed to this shift of bank credit from large firms to small firms.