Credit channel of monetary transmission mechanism: Theory and Turkey?s case

The credit channel works through the bank lending channel and the balance sheet channel. The credit view analyses this issue by appending credit market to IS/LM model (augmented IS/LM model). In bank lending channel, because of solving asymmetric information problems in credit markets, banks play an important role in the financial system. Also, bank lending channel is important as long as there is no perfect substitutability of bank credits with other sources of funds. In balance sheet channel, changes in the monetary policy affect, a wedge between internal and external finance which is known as external financial premium, measures of cash flow, net worth and the value of collateral.In this study, the efficiency of bank lending channel in the monetary transmission mechanism will be analysed for Turkey by VAR (vector autoregressive) method using monthly aggregate data for the period 1990:01 through 2008:11. Changes in the monetary policy which affect the credit variables (total deposits, total private sector loans and total loans of deposit money banks) will transfer the shocks to the real sectors of economy, i.e. output and prices. In Turkish case, the findings suggest that not overnight interest rate but monetary aggregates (monetary base and especially M2 money supply) seem to play an important role and their shocks are significantly transmitted to real economy (output and price) through credit variables of deposit money banks. In conclusion, Turkish financial system and the empirical evidences which are obtained impulse-response analyses, support the efficiency of a significant bank lending channel in Turkey.KEYWORDS: Monetary Transmission Mechanism Channels, Credit Channel, Bank Lending Channel, Balance Sheet Channel, Credit Rationing, Credit Crunch, VAR.