June 03, 2010
USA Today told readers that, “small businesses usually help drive job creation during recoveries but credit clogs have hurt hiring,” in the context of covering a speech by Federal Reserve Board Chair Ben Bernanke. Mr. Bernanke did not actually say that credit clogs are hurting small businesses in his speech, noting the possibility that banks have reduced lending because they see fewer good lending opportunities.
If it is the case that banks have reduced lending because of inadequate capital then we should be seeing two things:
1) Banks that do not have weak capital conditions should be lending aggressively, since there are many good loan opportunities that are not being met by their competitors; and
2) Larger firms, who can raise capital directly on capital markets (e.g. by issuing bonds or commercial paper) should be expanding rapidly to take advantage of opportunities that are closed to their capital constrained competitors.
There is no obvious evidence of either #1 or #2, suggesting that the issue is not a problem of capital constraints by weak banks, but rather a situation where firms weakened by the recession are less creditworthy than they were formerly.
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