Employing massive contract- and firm-level data provided by the SME Unit of the Japan Finance Corporation (JFC), one of the largest government lending institutions for SMEs, and linking the data with other firm-level data from a business credit information company, we empirically examine (1) the lending behavior of JFC to SMEs and (2) the effects JFC’s lending had on the credit availability and the ex-post performance of its borrowers. As for (1), JFC’s lending behavior, we find (1-a) a statistically significant association between JFC’s lending decision and a variety of variables including those from borrowers’ financial statements, and (1-b) JFC’s counter-cyclical lending behavior to SMEs. As for (2), effects of JFC’s lending, we find (2-a) a significant positive impact on borrowers’ credit availability, capital investment, and employment, (2-b) occasional complementarities between JFC loans and loans provided by other financial institutions, and (2-c) no definitive evidence for a positive impact on the borrowers’ ex-post performance including their profitability and the probabilities of their financial distress.
