Does tight monetary policy threaten the soundness of Korean banks?

Ji‐Yong Seo

Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, 2025, vol. 39, issue 1, 131-151

Abstract: This study analysed the relationship between the implementation of the Central Bank of Korea's tight monetary policy due to the recent deepening of inflation and the soundness of Korean banks. This study focused on the fact that the recently published research results of Jung (2023) were different from previous research results. The traditional result is that tight monetary policy reduces loan defaults by shrinking banks' lending capacity. However, Jung (2023), who analysed banks in the EU, claims that loan defaults do not increase despite easing monetary policy. This study empirically analysed the risk indicators that evaluate the financial soundness of banks by dividing them into the financial insolvency, financing costs, recapitalization, and risk holding. The research results are as follows. First, tight monetary policy reduces banks' loan defaults in line with Gambacorta and Mistrulli (2004) instead of Jung (2023). Second, banks' financing costs increased due to the tight monetary policy with same context to the claims of Borio and Hofmann (2017) and Jung (2023). Third, banks' recapitalization level actually decreased due to tight monetary policy as argument of Jung (2023). Fourth, tight monetary policy had no significant relationship with banks' risk taking behaviour in consistent with Diamond and Rajan (2011) and Jimenez et al. (2012). In conclusion, tight monetary policy reduces insolvency of loans, but increases potential risk factors such as increased financing costs and reduced recapitalization in the future. Therefore, this study suggests novel findings and policy challenges.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/apel.12434

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:apacel:v:39:y:2025:i:1:p:131-151

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://ordering.onl ... 7-8411&ref=1467-8411

Access Statistics for this article

Asian-Pacific Economic Literature is currently edited by Yixiao Zhou

More articles in Asian-Pacific Economic Literature from The Crawford School, The Australian National University
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().