The main aim of the paper is to show that credit boom-bust cycles in developing countries might reinforce economic volatility even without market imperfections. We first introduce currency substitution as a factor which becomes intertwined with liquidity preference in the case of a financially liberalized country. Next, we argue that financial reforms which accompany financial liberalization brought about currency substitution within deposits. Consequently, changes in liquidity preference lead to quantity rather than price changes in the form of shifts in the composition of total bank deposits between active and inactive balances. However, since we observe shifts between two different currencies the shifts from active to inactive balances involve currency substitution as well. We argue that changes in liquidity preference being entangled with currency substitution under the circumstances described, act as a built-in macroeconomic destabilize because domestic banks reserve requirements are higher for foreign exchange denominated accounts than for those denominated in home currency. Statistical evidence is provided to support the claim by performing a cointegration analysis under structural breaks between total volume of credits of the Turkish commercial banking system and currency substitution indicator. The results revealed that there is a negative relationship between currency substitution and credit expansion.
Key words: Credit Expansion, Currency substitution, Financial Liberalization, Volatility, Liquidity Preference. JEL Classification: F36, E32, F31. Article Language: EnglishTurkish
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