Using comprehensive data on bank lending and establishment-level outcomes from 1997-2011, this paper fails to find evidence in favor of the hypothesis that the small business lending channel is an important determinant of small business or overall economic activity. The shift-share style...

Given the challenges in quantifying the role of human capital on economic development, measuring human capital itself becomes an important issue. It is desirable to have a comprehensive human capital measure that goes beyond the traditional measures based on education attainment, yet is...

We estimate the effect of the reduction in credit supply that followed the 2008 financial crisis on the real economy. We predict county lending shocks using variation in pre-crisis bank market shares and estimated bank supply-shifts. Counties with negative predicted shocks experienced declines...