Cheap Trade Credit and Competition in Downstream Markets

Using information on about 10 million inter-firm transactions, we provide evidence that suppliers offer cheap trade credit to ease competition in downstream markets. We show theoretically that suppliers that have to transfer surplus to high-bargaining-power customers would want to offer an increasing price schedule to preserve sales to other buyers. Suppliers can implement this by choosing a trade credit limit up to which customers can purchase on account. This contractual feature allows suppliers to maintain high-bargaining-power customers' marginal costs high and limits competition in the downstream market. Empirically, we find that trade credit targets infra-marginal units and is granted when suppliers fear the cannibalization of sales to other customers. Exploiting a law that lowered the cost of offering trade credit, we show that higher provision of trade credit to high-bargaining-power customers leads to an expansion of the suppliers' sales to low-bargaining-power customers