Anna Matzner
- 12 February 2025
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 3024Details
- Abstract
- We study the heterogeneous pass-through of monetary policy across firms with different labor shares. The goal is to obtain evidence on a labor-intensity transmission channel that should in fact be operating for other kinds of demand shocks as well. Our basic idea is that labor is special: unlike capital, it cannot be pledged against loans as collateral due to property rights. Based on a sample of over one million European firms, we document substantial heterogeneity in terms of firms’ investment response: when conditions tighten, fixed capital stock of labor-intensive firms decreases relative to capital-intensive production. These findings cannot be explained by other proxies for financial constraints such as age, size or financial leverage. Our results suggest that the impact of monetary policy is driven by borrowing constraints of high labor share firms, and that monetary policy is more potent in an economy characterized by a high labor share.
- JEL Code
- D22 : Microeconomics→Production and Organizations→Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
D31 : Microeconomics→Distribution→Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
E23 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Production
E32 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Business Fluctuations, Cycles
- 26 July 2024
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2958Details
- Abstract
- We study the heterogeneous pass-through of carbon pricing on investment across firms. Using balance sheet data of 1.2 million European firms and identified carbon policy shocks, we find that higher carbon prices reduce investment, on average. However, less carbon-intensive firms and sectors reduce their investment relatively more compared to otherwise similar firms after a carbon price tightening shock. Following carbon price tightening, firms in demand-sensitive industries see a relative decrease not only in investment but also in sales, employment and cashflow. Moreover, we find no evidence that higher carbon prices incentivise carbon-intensive firms to produce less emission-intensively. Overall, our results are consistent with theories of the growth-hampering features of carbon price increases and suggest that carbon pricing policy operates as a demand shock.
- JEL Code
- Q54 : Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, Environmental and Ecological Economics→Environmental Economics→Climate, Natural Disasters, Global Warming
Q58 : Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, Environmental and Ecological Economics→Environmental Economics→Government Policy
D22 : Microeconomics→Production and Organizations→Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
H23 : Public Economics→Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue→Externalities, Redistributive Effects, Environmental Taxes and Subsidies