Has the Bank Lending Channel Changed in Turkey after the Crisis in 2001?

Abstract

This contribution investigates the role of Turkish banks in the monetary transmission mechanism, focusing on bank lending channel, over the time horizon 2002-2016. This study deploys a Bayesian stochastic frontier approach for our estimates. Literature shows that bank specific characteristics (e.g., liquidity) can have a significant impact on the provision of credit as well as changes in a bank’s loan portfolio, alongside the banks main characteristics (e.g., loan and receivable). Hence, this study enriches the standard analysis by evaluating Turkish banks technical and allocative efficiencies as well as the impact on the monetary policy stance for the Central Turkish Bank. Specifically, this research considers the sub-periods 2002-2008 and 2008-2016 to examine how monetary policy shocks influenced the credit and lending channel functioning in Turkey, especially after the major restructuring programme in 2000-2001. Given our unique dataset, empirical evidence suggests cross-sectional heterogeneity in bank response to monetary policy changes during 2002-2016. Based on the results of both pre- and post-crisis periods, the study finds that an operative bank lending channel has been existing in Turkey. Particularly, it emerges that monetary policy changes on bank credit supply affects bank differently based on their characteristics. Moreover, our findings confirm that banks with weaker capital positions, greater dependence on market funding and non-interest sources of income restricted the loan supply more strongly in case of any monetary shocks. Eventually, our results are in line with Akinci et al. (2013) who found that domestic banks are unexpectedly more efficient than foreign banks.