Staff Working Paper No. 1,205
Aydan Dogan and Ozgen Ozturk
We study how the financing of innovation shapes the transmission of monetary policy to productivity. Using US firm balance-sheet data matched to loan contracts, we show that contractionary monetary policy shocks reduce cash flow similarly across firms but lower R&D more among those without access to cash flow-based borrowing, where credit is extended against earnings rather than collateral. In a New Keynesian endogenous growth model with heterogeneous access to external finance, we show that a 25 basis point tightening lowers output persistently by 0.12%. Extending access to all firms reduces this loss by one third. The loss falls disproportionately on firms without access, which are younger and produce more and higher-quality patents.
Innovation, financial frictions, and persistent effects of monetary policy
