The Real Effect of Banking Crises

by Raghuram G. Rajan

Banking crises are usually followed by a decline in credit and growth. Is this because crises tend to take place during economic downturns, or do banking sector problems have independent negative effects on the economy? To answer this question we examine industrial sectors with differing needs for financing. If banking crises have an exogenous detrimental effect on real activity, then sectors more dependent on external finance should perform relatively worse during banking crises. The evidence in this paper supports this view. Additional support comes from the fact that sectors that predominantly have small firms, and thus are typically bank-dependent, also perform relatively worse during banking crises. The differential effects across sectors are stronger in developing countries, in countries with less access to foreign finance, and where banking crises have been more severe.

72 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2005

About the author

Raghuram Govind Rajan is a world-class Indian economist who has also served as the twenty-third Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. He also serves as Eric J. Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. Rajan is also a visiting professor for the World Bank, Federal Reserve Board, and Swedish Parliamentary Commission. He formerly served as the president of the American Finance Association and was the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In 1985, he graduated from the IIT, Delhi with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, and he completed his MBA at the IIM, Ahmedabad in 1987. He received a PhD in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1991 for his thesis titled "Essays on Banking".