A panel of annual balance sheet data on 323 Russian banks is used to test for the first time whether lending responses to a change in monetary policy differs, depending on the balance sheet strength of a bank. Only weak signs of that are found for Russian banks. This result implies that the bank lending channel has some, albeit limited, degree of effectiveness in Russia, which may increase in time, with the continued development of the Russian banking system.

Keywords: monetary transmission mechanism, bank lending channel, Russia, GMM.

  Lúcio Vinhas de Souza, Estimating the Existence of the Bank Lending Channel in the Russian Federation - plik pdf; (325 KB)