Banking globalization, monetary transmission, and the lending channel

The globalization of banking in the United States is influencing the monetary transmission mechanism both domestically and in foreign markets. Using quarterly information from all U.S. banks filing call reports between 1980 and 2006, we show that globalized banks activate internal capital markets with their overseas affiliates to insulate themselves partially from changes in domestic liquidity conditions. The existence of these internal capital markets directly contributes to an international propagation of domestic liquidity shocks to lending by affiliated banks abroad. While these results imply a substantially more active lending channel than documented in Kashyap and Stein (2000), they also imply that the lending channel within the United States is declining in strength as banking becomes more globalized and monetary transmission abroad likewise increases in strength.