DID CREDIT CRUNCH CAUSE A COLLAPSE IN PRIVATE INVESTMENT?: TURKEY CASE

Abstract

The economists have focused on credit crunch since 1990’s. The economists are not in consensus as to what constitutes the credit crunch. The differences in definitions come from the causes of credit contraction. Credit crunch is generally accepted as an enormous decline period in credit supply. Although the credit crunch is seen as a supply phenomenon, some economists define it as a demand issue. Investment declines significantly as result of an increase in credit rationing. The purpose of this study is to investigate the dependence of private investment on money and credit supply in Turkey. In other words, we want to quantify the effect of credit contraction in the banking sector on private fixed investment. VAR model is used to identify the existence of credit crunch through four economic variables: Private fixed investment, money stock (M2), bank loans to private sector and interest rate of commercial loans for the period ranging from 2003:01 to 2010:08. According to results of this study, it can be said that the credit crunch that we dealt with as a supply phenomenon leads to an investment collapse (slump) in Turkey. The paper proceeds as follows: Section I provides theoretical background of credit channels and credit crunch. Section II summarizes recent empirical studies. Section III describes variables and discusses the empirical findings of the model. Section IV provides concluding remarks.

Keywords

• Credit Crunch, Investment Slump, Turkey, VAR

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