The dark side of bank taxes

Abstract

We investigate the impact of a new bank tax in Poland on bank lending behavior. We find that banks respond to the tax by tightening credit supply and increasing the costs of credit to the real sector. However, the responses vary across loan segments. In line with search-for-yield behavior, the tax motivates banks to shift their allocations of household credit from low-margin and relatively safe mortgage loans to higher-margin and riskier consumer loans. We find no evidence that financially weak banks are more incentivized to shift to riskier loan types. Moreover, firms that receive loans from banks more exposed to the tax experience a greater credit contraction.