Financial Frictions and the Great Productivity Slowdown

We study the role of financial frictions for productivity. Using a rich cross-country firm-level data, we exploit variation in preexisting exposure to the 2008 global financial crisis to study the post-crisis productivity slowdown. Firms with weaker precrisis balance sheets experienced a highly persistent decline in post-crisis total factor productivity growth relative to their less vulnerable counterparts, accounting for about one-third of the within-firm productivity slowdown. This decline was larger for firms that faced a more severe tightening of credit conditions. Financially fragile firms cut back on innovation activities, one channel through which financial frictions weakened post-crisis productivity growth.