Directed Credit Programs for Agriculture and Industry: Arguments from Theory and Fact
从理论和事实角度论证政府定向信贷计划在农业和工业中的动机与效果，指出其能否实现目标取决于实施机制，并以日本工业信贷为例说明决策过程的重要性。
The motives behind government programs to provide directed credit to agricul-ture and industry can be traced to problems of asymmetric information in capi-tal markets and, consequently, to benefits from relaxing the constraints on financing. In agriculture, directed credit programs that help farmers accumulate sufficient wealth to own the land they cultivate may improve the allocation of resources. In industry, the benefits of government credit may include product and factor market externalities, as weU as the direct benefits from relaxing borrowing constraints. In both sectors, government credit can be useful in over-coming obstacles faced by private intermediaries when lending entails initial fixed costs that intermediaries cannot recapture. Whether government intervention in credit markets can achieve legitimate objectives depends on the mechanism chosen to imnplenent directed credit. In some cases influence-peddling and soft repayment constraints lead to inefficien-cies from government involvement. In other cases these problems are avoided by establishing credible mechanisms that ensure the proper allocation and repay-ment offunds. Evidence on industrial credit programs in Japan shows an apparent link between that country's success in directing credit to machine-tool producers and the decisionmaking process that governs the distribution of credit. R ecent research investigates the role that directed credit programs play in mitigating possible misallocations of capital caused by information asymmetries. In this paper we argue that the nature of slch misalloca-