Public Information and Coordination: Evidence from a Credit Registry Expansion
研究发现，当企业接近财务困境时，贷款人有动机协调减少融资，而公共信息（如强制共享负面评估）会加剧这种协调行为，增加企业陷入困境的可能性。
ABSTRACT This paper provides evidence that lenders to a firm close to distress have incentives to coordinate: lower financing by one lender reduces firm creditworthiness and causes other lenders to reduce financing. To isolate the coordination channel from lenders' joint reaction to new information, we exploit a natural experiment that forced lenders to share negative private assessments about their borrowers. We show that lenders, while learning nothing new about the firm, reduce credit in anticipation of other lenders' reaction to the negative news about the firm. The results show that public information exacerbates lender coordination and increases the incidence of firm financial distress.