We measure how cuts to public procurement propagate through the banking system
in a financial crisis. During the European sovereign debt crisis, the Portuguese
government cut procurement spending by 4.3% of GDP.We find that this cut saddled
banks with non-performing loans from government contractors, which led to a reduction
in credit supply to other firms. The credit supply shock, in turn, caused firm
output to decline. In a general equilibrium model, our firm-level estimates imply an
aggregate elasticity of credit supply with respect to aggregate demand of 1.6 and a
credit-driven fiscal multiplier of 0.6.