Política monetária e a heterogeneidade nas restrições de crédito

Abstract

This study uses the difference-in-differences method to estimate the impact of monetary policy in the period of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Brazilian credit market, more specifically whether during the pandemic banks offered credit in a heterogeneous manner, according to the size of firms, and whether small firms benefited less from credit expansion. For this we used two different functional forms, one to test the heterogeneity hypothesis, observing only the size of firms, and the other considering size and credit modality. We found evidence that small firms received on average 66.89% less credit than large firms during the COVID-19 pandemic period, micro and medium-sized firms 32.68% less, and when looking at micro, small and medium-sized firms this effect is even larger, receiving 36.97%, validating the hypothesis of heterogeneity in the credit market. In line with the preliminary results observed in specification 1, when the interaction between sizes is added, it is observed that large companies were the main beneficiaries, since the working capital credit offered to large companies showed an average growth, during the pandemic period, of approximately 177% in relation to housing. On the other hand, while large companies presented a significant growth when analyzing the scenario for micro companies, this value is infinitely smaller, presenting an average growth of only 15%. We can then conclude that during the COVID-19 pandemic, monetary policies were more beneficial to large companies, while micro companies were the least benefited.