Public procurement and bank lending

This article unveils that government is intertwined with banking through a hitherto underexplored channel—through public procurement. On a comprehensive firm-level dataset that combines public procurement and accounting data, we apply the difference-in-differences method to show that treated firms that secure a public procurement contract can strengthen their bank borrowing terms. Treated firms obtain a greater amount of bank funding and a higher share of long-term funding at lower interest rates compared to the control firms. The impact on bank lending exceeds the positive impact due to higher revenues and suggests a positive non-revenue channel of public procurement.