Download or read book Basel Accord and Lending Behavior written by Sami Ben Naceur and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1988, an agreement was reached in Basel to set the common requirements of bank capital towards promoting the soundness and stability of the international banking system. Banks are required to hold capital in proportion to their perceived credit risks, which may have caused a quot;credit crunch,quot; resulting in a significant reduction in the supply of credit. We investigate the direct link between the implementation of the Basel Accord and lending activities using a data set spanning annual observations covering 1989-2004 for banks in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia. The results provide clear support for a significant increase in credit growth following the implementation of capital regulations, in general. Despite higher capital adequacy ratio, banks expanded credit and assets growth. Credit growth appears to be driven by demand fluctuations attributed to real growth, cost of borrowing and exchange rate risk. Overall, the effects of macroeconomic variables, in contrast to capital adequacy, appear to be more dominant in determining credit growth, regardless of the capital adequacy ratio, and variation across banks by nationality, ownership, and listing.