The China syndrome affects banks: the credit supply channel of foreign import competition (Updated February 2020)

Sergio Mayordomo and Omar Rachedi

No 1908, Working Papers from Banco de España

Abstract: Did the rise of Chinese import competition in the early 2000s affect banks’ credit supply policies? Using bank-firm-level data on the universe of Spanish corporate loans, we find that banks rebalanced their loan portfolios away from firms facing Chinese import competition and towards profitable firms in non-exposed sectors. Banks supplied more credit also to the construction sector, yet independently of firms’ profitability. This is not due to banks’ exposure to the housing boom. Rather, the high geographical concentration of the manufacturing industries competing with China left local banks with fewer alternatives to local construction firms for rebalancing their loan portfolios. The portfolio rebalancing had large real effects: it depressed further the economic activity of firms competing with Chinese imports, and contributed to the construction sector boom of the early 2000s.

Keywords: trade shock; bank loans; banks’ portfolio reallocation; credit register; real effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F65 G21 G32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 60 pages
Date: 2019-03, Revised 2020-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-com, nep-eec and nep-fdg
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bde:wpaper:1908

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