Financial distress, bank branching deregulation, and customer-supplier relationships
利用美国州际银行分行放松管制政策，研究发现客户企业获得更多银行信贷后，其供应商的财务困境风险显著降低，且客户会建立新银行关系、改善流动性，供应商则减少贸易信贷、降低杠杆并增加资本支出。
The paper exploits the deregulation of interstate bank branching laws to examine whether improved access to bank credit for customer firms affects the probability of their suppliers' financial distress. The study provides robust evidence that suppliers' financial distress risk is lower when the states of their major customer firms experience bank branching deregulation. Furthermore, the study shows that customers establish new bank relationships and improve liquidity conditions, while suppliers offer less trade credit to customers, reduce leverage, and increase capital expenditures following customer state's bank branching deregulation. The effect of customers' improved access to credit on suppliers' distress risk is more pronounced for supplier firms with stronger customer-supplier relationships, for financially constrained suppliers, and for suppliers whose customers are financially unconstrained. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of customers' access to credit on the financial distress risk of their suppliers.