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...

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,...

The paper aims at investigating on the credit conditions experienced by Italian firms during the recent business cycle. In doing so, we use a novel dataset on firms’ opinions derived from the ISTAT Business Confidence surveys. The dataset allows us to add to existing literature in three...

This paper concerns the problem of corporate credit in Poland and tries to determine the sources of banks’ unexpected hesitance to provide enterprises with additional liquidity, which was observed during the global financial crisis. It differentiates between fundamental and non-fundamental...

This paper examines whether the decline in loans to the private sector in Trinidad and Tobago from mid-2009 was caused by a demand-induced or the credit crunch phenomenon. The study presents an alternative methodology for estimating the credit crunch. The new methodology emphasizes an aggregate...

Supply and demand responses to financial crises result in fluctuations in credit flow to the private sector. Policy makers concerned with the sustainability and growth of viable firms should disaggregate these responses. Utilising firm level data, this study investigates characteristics of firms...

The decades preceding the Great Depression and the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis have close similarities. Both decades were characterized by rapid growth without major contractions, by an increase in liquidity, a lack of inflation, and a generalized decrease in risk premiums. Additional...

In this paper we empirically analyse the factors which determined consumer credit in Greece in the period before and after the financial liberalisation, while accounting for significant changes in structure due to the lifting of credit restrictions and the subsequent impressive boom of consumer...

This paper investigates asymmetric co-integration and causality effects between financial development and economic growth for South African data spanning over the period of 1992 to 2013. To this end, we make use of the momentum threshold autoregressive (MTAR) approach which allows for threshold...

We propose a method for calculating the macroeconomic costs of banking crises that controls for the downward impact of recessions on banking activity. In contrast to earlier research, we estimate the cost of crises based on the size of banking crises. The extent of a crisis is measured using...