Is Bank Lending Channel of Monetary Policy Relevance? A Panel Study of Indonesia

This paper aims to investigate the relevance of bank lending channel in Indonesia by using bank level data set for a period from 1990 to 2010. A static panel data method namely fixed effects and random effects model are used in estimating the banks’ loan supply function. Besides monetary policy variable, several macroeconomic variables (real GDP and inflation), and bank characteristic variables (bank size, liquidity and bank capital) are also considered in estimating the banks’ loan supply function. The findings support the existence of bank lending channel in Indonesia, in which the banks’ loan supply is negatively and significantly influenced by monetary policy. The banks’ specific variables such as bank liquidity and bank capital ratio are statistically significant and negatively correlated, while asset size is significant and positively correlated with the banks’ loan supply.