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I am reading Banerjee and Duflo's (2014) seminal paper on credit constraints faced by firms in India.

In their theoretical model (see page 11, namely figure 1), they show that, if firms are credit not credit constrained, they will not increase output when offered subsidised credit.

This may be quite a stupid question, but I don't understand why firms would not invest at the market loans until point k(O) in figure 1 ; then, using the loans with lower interest rate, invest with bank (subidised) loans until point kb2. Why would we expect then to subsitute all market credit with bank (subsidized) credit before reaching that point ?

Thanks for any input !

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What you are proposing is not profit maximising. Consider a deviation from you proposal where the firm takes out one less unit of the market loan. Then the marginal loss in output is $r_i$ while the marginal saving in costs is $r_m > r_i$. As such, the firm can strictly increase its profits by reducing the amount of market loans.

The problem for the firm is the following: $$ \max F(k_m + k_b) - r_b k_b - r_m k_m \\\text{ subject to } k_b \le k_0, k_b \ge 0, k_m \ge 0 $$ where $k_m$ is the amount of market loans and $k_b$ is the amount of subsidized loans (which is capped at $k_0$).

The Langrangian is $$ L = F(k_m + k_b) - r_b k_b - r_m k_m - \lambda(k_0 - k_b) + \mu_b k_b + \mu_m k_m $$ The Kuhn-Tucker first order conditions read \begin{align*} &F'(k_m + k_b) +\lambda + \mu_b = r_b,\\ &F'(k_m + k_b) + \mu_m = r_m\\ &\lambda(k_0 - k_b) = 0,\\ &\mu_b k_b = 0,\\ &\mu_m k_m = 0 \end{align*} $$

If $\lambda = \mu_b > 0$ then $k_b = 0$ and $k_b = k_0$, which is impossible.

There are several cases to consider:

  1. $\lambda = 0, \lambda_b > 0, \mu_m > 0$. In this case we have that $k_b = 0$ and $k_m = 0$. This can only be if $$ F'(0) + \mu_b = r_b \text{ and } F'(0) + \mu_m = r_m, $$ So $F'(0) < r_b < r_m$. In this case, it is simply too costly to borrow anything.

  2. $\lambda = 0$, $\mu_b > 0$ and $\mu_m = 0$. In this case, $k_b = 0$. Then $$ F'(k_m) + \mu_b = r_b \text{ and } F'(k_m) = r_m $$ But then $r_m = F'(k_m) < r_b$, which is impossible. So this case is ruled out.

  3. $\lambda >0$, $\mu_b = 0$, $\mu_m > 0$. Here $k_m$ is equal to zero, $k_b = k_0$ and $k_m = 0$. Then $$ F'(k_0) + \lambda = r_b \text{ and } F'(k_0) + \mu_m = r_m. $$ In this case, the firm will take up the entire subsidized loan. However, taking up additional amount of market loan would be too costly as $r_m > F'(k_0)$. Here increasing $k_0$ will increase profits as $\lambda > 0$ and increasing $k_0$ will also increase total output $F(k_0)$.

  4. $\lambda > 0$, $\mu_b = 0$, $\mu_m = 0$. In this case we have that $k_b = k_0$ and $$ F'(k_0 + k_m) + \lambda = r_b \text{ and } F'(k_0 + k_m) = r_m. $$ This is the case in the figure. The firm will take up the entire amount $k_0$ and some additional loans $k_m$. Now, notice that if $k_0$ increases (and we remain in case 4) we still have that $F'(k_0 + k_m) = r_m$. So the total amount of capital $k_0 + k_m$ should remain constant. This means that the increase in $k_0$ is entirely compensated with an equal decrease in $k_m$. The profits will increase $(\lambda > 0)$ but the total amount of capital and the total output $F(k_0 + k_m)$ will not change.

  5. $\lambda = 0, \mu_b = 0, \mu_m = 0$. In this case, $$ F'(k_b + k_m) = r_b \text{ and } F'(k_b + k_m) = r_m, $$ which is impossible as $r_b < r_m$.

  6. $\lambda = 0, \mu_b = 0$ and $\mu_m > 0$. In this case, $k_m = 0$, so $$ F'(k_b) = r_b \text{ and } F'(k_b) + \mu_m = r_m, $$ In this setting the firm will only take up subsidized loans up to the point where $F'(k_b) = r_b$. Increasing $k_0$ will have no effect as the constraint $k_b \le k_0$ is not binding at the optimum.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you very much, very clear ! $\endgroup$
    – Ploit88
    Commented Aug 30, 2023 at 8:41

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