Risk-Based Capital Requirements for Banks and International Trade
57 Pages Posted: 10 Oct 2016
Date Written: October 2016
Abstract
We find that changes in banks' risk-based capital requirements can affect firm-level exports. We exploit the mandatory Basel II adoption in its Standardized Approach by all banks in Turkey on July 1, 2012. This change affects risk-weights for letters of credit and generates two identification schemes with opposite predicted signs. Using data that cover 16,662 exporters shipping 2,888 different products to 158 countries, we find that the share of letter of credit-based exports decreases (increases) at the firm- country-product level when the associated counterparty risk-weights increase (decrease) after Basel II adoption. However, growth of firm-product-country level exports remains unaffected.
Keywords: Basel II, international trade finance, letters of credit
JEL Classification: F14, G21, G28
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Evren Ors
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