Hence the question: is a lack of credit really a constraint on recovery?
The historic evidence is not much help here. It shows that there has been only a weak correlation between bank lending growth and manufacturing output. But this is not as encouraging as it seems. The lack of correlation is because strong lending did not much boost output, rather than because output has done well when lending contracted.
There are three reasons to think a creditless recovery is possible. But all are questionable.
1. A lot of credit growth has been to non-industrial firms, such as real estate companies. This means the credit “cycle” and the industrial “cycle” are different things.
However, manufacturers supply materials to the building industry. Anything that depresses construction will, therefore, be bad for manufacturing.
2. If exports grow, output will rise and bank debt fall as firms use revenue from overseas to pay down borrowing.
This happened last year; non-oil exports rose 9.4 per cent in value terms and 4.3 per cent in volume terms in the 12 months to Q4. However, next week’s numbers are expected to show that bank lending in the euro area has fallen for the last three months. If the UK is to enjoy continued export-driven growth, therefore, our main trading partner must also enjoy a creditless recovery.
3. If companies start spending the cash they’ve built up over the last ten years – say by increasing capital spending - output will grow and bank debt will fall, as the recipients of capital goods orders use the revenue to pay off borrowing.
Sadly, there’s little sign of this happening to any degree yet: corporate cash holdings have been more or less flat in the last two years. There’s a good reason for this. Firms have accumulated cash because they haven’t seen good investment opportunities; why should this change soon?
A creditless recovery is therefore possible, but not at all certain.
But even if we do get one, it’ll not be an unmitigated good. The likeliest way we’ll see one would be if firms do start to invest their cash balances. However, as it is probably larger firms that have such balances, such a process would see big firms getting bigger whilst smaller, credit-constrained ones struggle. Although this might benefit equities – as the larger firms tend to be quoted – it’s not entirely healthy for the economy for the big to get bigger.
