Why do banks squeeze their lending activity? is an oft-repeated question during the times of financial crisis. This study examines an emerging economy’s banking system and contributes to the evolving body of literature on the topic by providing answers as to what causes the sluggish bank...

The paper examines whether banks’ funding structure amplifies procyclicality. Using data for GCC banks for the period 1996-2009, the evidence suggests that banks with higher wholesale dependence cut back lending by a greater amount. In addition, the procyclicality of the financial system and...

This paper examines empirically the role of bank market power as an internal factor influencing banks’ reaction in terms of lending and risk-taking to monetary policy impulses. The analysis is carried out for the US and euro-area banking sectors over the period 1997-2010. Market power is...

This paper reviews the rapidly growing empirical literature on the drivers of capital flows to emerging markets. The empirical evidence is structured based on the recognition that the drivers of capital flows vary over time and across different types of capital flows. The drivers are classified...

The transmission of monetary policy may hold the key to explaining the effects of policy on the economy. The objective of the study is to assess the importance of the bank lending channel in the transmission of monetary policy in Australia. In this paper, we found that the effectiveness of...

This paper provides empirical evidence to support the theory that, in Italy, over the course of the past two years, even though a considerable slowdown in bank lending has been recorded, there has not been a credit crunch. After a first section dedicated to a descriptive analysis of the data,...

We evaluate policy measures to stop the fall in loan supply following a banking crisis. We apply a dynamic framework in which a debt overhang induces banks to curtail lending or to choose a fragile capital structure. Government assistance conditional on new banking activities, like on new...

This paper explores a financial role of Japanese general trading companies (GTCs), which act as a central point in a distribution network among group firms. I examine Meltzer’s conjecture, which holds that financially strong companies like GTCs increase trade receivables and reduce trade...

We examine the strategic reaction of banks to the current global financial crisis. In particular, we test whether banks predominantly react by diversifying their loan portfolio or by stepping up their screening and monitoring. To this end we analyze information on nearly 17,000 syndicated loans...

A voluminous literature seeks to explore the relation between law and finance, but offers little insights into dynamic relation between legal change and behavioral outcomes or about the distributive effects of law on different market participants. The current paper disentangles the law-finance...