The impact of a country’s level of development on the nexus between bank lending structure and economic growth

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to determine how the impact of the bank lending structure on economic growth differs depending on the level of a country’s development. The article provides suggestions on how much one can rely on the leading growth of corporate and consumer bank lending in order to promote economic growth. The study is based on the panel data for 211 countries for the period 1990—2019 using methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis. The authors have identified three groups of the countries where the impact of the bank lending structure on economic growth is different. In the least developed and low-income countries, the leading growth of both consumer and corporate lending has a positive impact on economic growth. As GDP per capita reaches 4,700—7,000 constant 2010 U.S. dollars, the outstripping growth of consumer lending begins to negatively affect economic growth, while corporate lending continues to have a positive impact. As GDP per capita continues to increase, corporate lending also begins to negatively affect economic growth. The GDP per capita threshold level, after which the negative impact of corporate lending begins, ranges from 6,000 to 42,000 constant 2010 U.S. dollars, some estimates allow us to specify these limits from 13,000 to 22,000 constant 2010 U.S. dollars. Such broad boundaries are determined by the fact that the role of the banking sector in investments financing may differ because of the financial sector model and the national economy structure. However, our results show that in the most developed and high-income countries, faster growth in corporate lending will not contribute to economic growth. The study also finds that the share of mortgage loans in GDP has a positive but insignificant effect on economic growth in all groups of the countries.