Financing of Firms, Labor Reallocation and the Distributional Role of Monetary Policy

We analyze monetary policy in a heterogenous firms environment where cash con- strained firms finance operations through external financing and cash unconstrained firms operate by using internal funds. We show that firms respond differently to shocks: expansionary monetary policy sharply increases the relative employment of the cash constrained firms while positive productivity shocks induce a rise in the relative employment of the cash unconstrained firms. Our analysis points to a clear role of monetary policy in reallocating resources across sectors that differ in their financing capabilities. Furthermore, the predictions of our model match the empirical evidence implying that financially constrained firms react sharply to monetary policy shocks but are less cyclical than unconstrained firms following productivity shocks.Heterogeneous Firms, Monetary Policy, Labor Reallocation, Firms’ financin