Banks'procyclicality behavior: does provisioning matter?

Vincent Bouvatier and Laetitia Lepetit

Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques from Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1)

Abstract: A panel of 186 European banks is used for the period 1992-2004 to determine if banking behaviors induced by the capital adequacy constraint and the provisioning system, amplify credit fluctuations. Our finding is consistent with the bank capital channel hypothesis, which means that poorly capitalized banks are constrained to expand credit. We also find that loan loss provisions (LLP) made in order to cover identified credit losses (non discretionary LLP) amplify credit fluctuations. Indeed, non discretionary LLP evolve cyclically. This leads to a misevaluation of expected credit risk which affect banks' incentives to grant new loans since lending costs are misstated. By contrast, LLP use for management objectives (discretionary LLP) do not affect credit fluctuations. The findings of our research are consistent with the call for the implementation of dynamic provisioning in Europe

Keywords: Bank lending; loan loss provisions; capital requirement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2006-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-bec, nep-cba, nep-fin, nep-fmk and nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Banks' procyclicality behavior: does provisioning matter? (2006)
Working Paper: Banks' procyclicality behavior: does provisioning matter? (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mse:wpsorb:bla06035

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