tailieunhanh - THE DEGREE OF JUDICIAL ENFORCEMENT AND CREDIT MARKETS: EVIDENCE FROM JAPANESE HOUSEHOLD PANEL DATA

It is highly likely that by augmenting the amount of funding available to banks, securitization activity had a significant and positive impact on credit growth during the years prior to the credit crisis (Loutskina and Strahan, 2009, Altunbas et al., 2009). In a number of countries experiencing a period credit growth, securitization activity probably strengthened the feedback effect between increases in housing prices and the credit expansion. The growth in securitization issuance also led to laxer credit standards and looser screening of borrowers thereby supporting higher credit growth in the years prior to the crisis (Keys,. | Discussion Paper No. 764 THE DEGREE OF JUDICIAL ENFORCEMENT AND CREDIT MARKETS EVIDENCE FROM JAPANESE HOUSEHOLD PANEL DATA Charles Yuji Horioka Shizuka Sekita December 2009 The Institute of Social and Economic Research Osaka University 6-1 Mihogaoka Ibaraki Osaka 567-0047 Japan The Degree of Judicial Enforcement and Credit Markets Evidence from Japanese Household Panel Data Charles Yuji Horioka f Institute of Social and Economic Research Osaka University Shizuka Sekita Japan Society for the Promotion of Science JSPS Research Fellow December 2009 t Corresponding author Institute of Social and Economic Research Osaka University 6-1 Mihogaoka Ibaraki Osaka 567-0047 Japan Telephone 81 6-6879-8586 8574 Facsimile 81 6-6878-2766 E-mail horioka@ Institute of Social and Economic Research Osaka University 6-1 Mihogaoka Ibaraki Osaka 567-0047 Japan Telephone 81 6-6879-8550 E-mail sekita@ The Degree of Judicial Enforcement and Credit Markets Evidence from Japanese Household Panel Data Abstract In this paper we conduct an empirical analysis of the impact of better judicial enforcement on the probability of being credit rationed loan size and the probability of bankruptcy using household-level data from the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers conducted by the Institute for Research on Household Economics in conjunction with judicial data by court district on trial length and the ratio of the number of pending civil trials to the number of incoming civil trials. Contrary to the predictions of the existing theory we find that better judicial enforcement increases the probability of being credit rationed and decreases loan size. Furthermore we find that better judicial enforcement increases the probability of bankruptcy a result that is consistent with lax screening effects. Keywords Judicial enforcement Credit allocation Credit rationing Bankruptcy Screening Household Behavior Borrowing JEL classification numbers D12 G21 G33 K12 K41 .