Non-Core Bank Liabilities and Financial Vulnerability

A lending boom is reflected in the composition of bank liabilities when traditional retail deposits (core liabilities) cannot keep pace with asset growth and banks turn to other funding sources (non-core liabilities) to finance their lending. We formulate a model of credit supply as the flip side of a credit risk model where a large stock of non-core liabilities serves as an indicator of the erosion of risk premiums and hence of vulnerability to a crisis. We find supporting empirical evidence in a panel probit study of emerging and developing economies.