Collateral Value and Financing Constraint: Analysis using Corporate Data after the Great Tohoku Earthquake
利用东日本大地震造成的企业有形资产损失作为外生冲击，研究发现受损企业更易面临借贷困难，证实了抵押品价值下降会收紧融资约束的抵押品渠道。
The aim of this paper is to study the collateral channel which predicts that the reduction in the value of firms' physical assets leads to their smaller debt capacity, hence to borrowing constraints. As a unique feature of our approach, we employ a quasi-natural experiment approach and focus on a purely exogenous shock on firms' collateral values stemming from the damages associated with the Great Tohoku Earthquake, which enables us to identify the collateral channel in a much cleaner manner than conventional approaches. Our estimates show that firms that suffered from damages on their tangible fixed assets were more likely to face difficulty in borrowing from financial institutions. This finding supports the existence of the collateral channel.