The Loan Puzzle. A Study of Loans to Different Groups in the USA

Abstract

We study loans from banking and non-banking lenders to different groups of borrowers in order to unveil significant differences on how those respond to a shock and evaluate possible alternative explanations for such differences. The objective is to gain insights useful to explain the loan puzzle: the unexpected increase of loans to firms in case of a monetary tightening. The analysis is based on a vector autoregression, estimated using Bayesian techniques, and has as object the US economy.

Keywords: loan puzzle, households, corporate businesses, non-corporate businesses, VAR, Bayesian estimation

JEL Classification: E440, E510, G200, G210, C110