Sky is Not Falling, Say Local Banks
Reports filed by the publicly traded banks provide a counterpoint to the national concern that businesses can’t borrow because banks are hoarding their cash, Moot said. “All the data we’ve got doesn’t point to a slowdown in lending,” she said.
Nationally, some economists have made similar points. In a paper last month for the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, three economists said bank credit continued to rise, at least through Oct. 15, as have the total amounts of loans and leases.
But Harvard Business School professors Victoria Ivashina and David Scharfstein said in their own paper that loan totals are growing partly because companies are drawing down previously arranged lines of credit. Also, several economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston wrote this month that the amount of loans banks keep on their balance sheets is growing because they can no longer sell loans to be packaged into other securities.
Still, ... Read More...
