Determinants of Bank Lending

This article aims to empirically investigate the determinants of bank credit by using a large data set covering 146 countries at different levels of economic development over the period 1990-2013. We find evidence of the country specific effect of economic growth on bank credit. Our empirical results also suggest that the health of domestic banking system plays a relevant role in boosting bank lending. By contrast, the dependence on foreign capital inflows of a country can make its domestic banking sector more vulnerable to external shock and then to face credit boom-bust cycles