Macroeconomics Commons^™

Resolution Of Bad Loan Problem: Bank-Level Evidence From A Low-Income Country, Abu S. Amin, Lucy Chernykh, Mahmood Osman Imam

WCBT Faculty Publications

How do banks resolve a severe bad loan problem in a capital-constrained, low income country when a government bailout is not an option? We address this question by examining new evidence of a sharp decline in bad loan ratios in a panel of domestic banks in Bangladesh. On the aggregate level, the share of nonperforming loans in this market has dropped six fold, from above 41% in 1999 to below 7% in 2010. Notably, this dramatic improvement did not involve the creation of any centralized asset management facilities but relied on the bank management and governance reforms. We find that …