Uncertainty and International Banking

We develop a new measure of uncertainty derived from bank-level data. We apply the measure of firm-level uncertainty developed by Bloom and others (2012) to banking. Uncertainty is measured as the cross-sectional dispersion of shocks to banking-sector specific variables. We then analyze how uncertainty in banking affects lending by domestic and foreign-owned banks. We find that, first, higher uncertainty in banking has negative effects on bank lending. Second, the effect is heterogeneous across banks: Lending by banks which are better capitalized and have higher liquidity buffers tends to be affected less. Third, foreign-owned banks do not react differently to uncertainty in the host country compared to domestically-owned banks.