German Bank Lending During Emerging Market Crises: A Bank Level Analysis

This paper studies German bank lending during the Asian and Russian crises, using a bank level data set, which has been compiled from credit data at the Deutsche Bundesbank. Our aim is to gain more insight into the pattern of German bank lending during financial crises in emerging markets. We find that German banks reacted to the Asian crisis mainly by reallocating their portfolios among emerging markets. This behaviour is consistent with active portfolio management and does not necessarily indicate a spontaneous reaction to the Asian crisis. By contrast, the banks' behaviour during the Russian crisis is characterised by a general withdrawal from emerging markets. The use of micro data allo…