The creation and destruction margins of employment (job flows) can be used to measure the employment effects of disruptions to firm credit. Using a firm dynamics model, we establish that a tightening of credit to firms reduces employment primarily by reducing gross job creation, exhibiting stronger effects at new, young, and middle-sized firms. The firm credit channel accounts for, at most, 18%, of the decline in US employment in the Great Recession. Using MSA-level job flows data, we show that the job flows response to identified credit shocks is consistent with our model's predictions. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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