Macroeconomics Commons^™

Regulations, Governance, And Resolution Of Non-Performing Loan: Evidence From An Emerging Economy, Abu S. Amin, Mahmood Osman Iman, Mahfuja Malik

WCBT Faculty Publications

How do banks resolve a severe bad loan problem in a capital-constrained, low-income economy when a government bailout is not an option? We address this question by examining new evidence from a sharp decline in bad loan ratios in a panel of conventional commercial banks in Bangladesh. On the aggregate level, the bad loan ratio in this market has dropped from 41% in 1999 to only 10% in 2012. We find that at a micro level, this dramatic improvement is associated with bank management quality and internal governance that were substantially enhanced during a decade of large-scale regulatory reforms. The …