Of substitutes and complements: trade credit versus bank loans in Japan, 1980–2012

This paper explores the interplay of trade credit and short-term bank loans between 1980 and 2012 in Japan. Many of the issues discussed for the U.S. remain largely unexplored for Japan, yet Japan is an interesting country study because of the particular features of its financial sector and its experience of extended zero interest rates. This paper makes three contributions: (1) We develop a new approach to using the Bank of Japan tankan survey,...