The role of foreign banks in the transmission of monetary policy: Empirical evidence from Tunisia

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the effect of monetary policy shocks on credit supply in Tunisia, using a vector autoregressive model and a nonlinear interactive model. The focus is on the magnitude of these shocks in the presence of foreign banks. The variables of interest are the concentration index of deposit banks, and monetary policy shocks based on the monthly data of 27 universal and business banks covering the period 1993 to 2016. The results support a positive and significant impact of concentration index on credit supply. However, monetary policy shocks appear to have no significant effect when the market is concentrated with the entry of foreign banks. The findings of this study also reveal that the entry of foreign banks neutralises monetary policy shock transmission in the credit supply, which may be offset by market discipline.