This study provides evidence that shocks to the supply of trade finance have a causal effect on U.S. exports. The identification strategy exploits variation in the importance of banks as providers of letters of credit across countries. The larger a U.S. bank's share of the trade finance market...

Banks play a critical role in facilitating international trade by guaranteeing international payments and thereby reducing the risk of trade transactions. This paper uses banking data from the United States to document new empirical patterns regarding the use of letters of credit and similar...