Does Direct Monetary Policy Affect the Supply of Bank Credit to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises? An Analysis Based on Chinese Data

In order to develop the real economy and solve the problems of enterprise financing and lending, banks should increase their support for SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises). The People's Bank of China introduced two direct monetary policy tools in June 2020, which are important for alleviating the financing problems of SMEs, improving the construction of financial support for the real economy and promoting the recovery of economic development. This paper manually collects annual data on the loan balances of SMEs from listed commercial banks in China from 2011 to 2021, and it empirically tests the implementation effects of the direct monetary policy tools using the double-difference model and the moderating effect model. The results of the study indicate that the implementation of the direct monetary policy tools can increase the credit supply of commercial banks to SMEs. The moderating effect of digital inclusive finance on the impact of direct monetary policy on the credit supply of SMEs is not statistically significant for the time being. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the transmission mechanism of structural monetary policy, establish a sustainable development mechanism for digital inclusive finance, and guide commercial banks to improve their capital strength and profitability so that structural monetary policy tools can be most effective.