1 Lending relationships and the transmission of liquidity shocks: Evidence from a natural experiment Yiyi Bai School of Finance, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law Email: yiyi.bai@zuel.edu.cn Tri Vi Dang Department of Economics, Columbia University Email: td2332@columbia.edu Qing He School of Finance & China Financial Policy Research Center, Renmin University of China Email: qinghe@ruc.edu.cn Liping Lu Department of Finance, VU University Amsterdam Email: l.lu@vu.nl