Exports and Financial Shocks

A striking feature of many financial crises is the collapse of exports relative to output. This article examines whether deteriorations in bank health can help explain the large drops in exports relative to output. Our article is the first to establish a causal link between the health of banks providing trade finance and growth in a firm’s exports relative to its domestic sales. We overcome measurement and endogeneity issues by using a unique data set, covering the Japanese financial crises from 1990 through 2010, which enables us to match exporters with the main bank that provides them with trade finance. Our point estimates are economically and statistically significant, suggesting that the health of financial institutions is an important determinant of firm-level exports during crises.