Why Don't They Lend? Credit Stagnation in Latin America

Adolfo Barajas and Roberto Steiner

IMF Staff Papers, 2002, vol. 49, issue Special issue, 156-184

Abstract: This study examines the recent marked slowdown in bank credit to the private sector in Latin America. Based on a study of eight countries—Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and Venezuela—the magnitude of the slowdown is documented, comparing it to historical behavior and to similar episodes in other regions of the world. Second, changes in bank balance sheets are examined to determine whether the credit slowdown is merely a reflection of a downturn in bank deposits or whether the asset side has changed. Third, following an econometric disequilibrium approach used in recent studies of bank credit in East Asia and Finland, the paper investigates the possible causes in three countries: Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. While both supply and demand factors appear to have played key roles, their relative importance has varied across the three countries. Copyright 2002, International Monetary Fund

JEL-codes: G21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/imfsp/journal/v49/SI/pdf/barajas.pdf main text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:pal:imfstp:v:49:y:2002:i:si:p:156-184

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/41308/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in IMF Staff Papers from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().