서민금융기관의 대출 확대가 여신건전성에 미치는 영향: 신용협동조합을 대상으로

This paper examines whether abnormal loan growth results in an increase in troubled loans in the near future using Korean credit unions for the 2010―2017 period. To do so, I employ a dynamic two-step system GMM panel estimation method. The dataset comes from the National Credit Union Federation of Korea. I find evidence that abnormal loan growth in the past four years deteriorates loan quality. While credit unions with higher net capital ratios have lower loan defaults, size of credit unions, measured by the natural logarithm of total assets, seems to be not related with loan defaults. The results show that credit unions less suffer from the adverse effects of abnormal loan growth as long as local real estate markets in their operational areas are on the upturn. Furthermore, the results of robustness checks show that abnormal loan growth leads to not only a rise in loan defaults but also a reduction in profits, measured by net interest margins. Overall, the results of this paper is consistent with theoretical background of the macro-finance literature that emphasizes credit cycles and adverse effects of credit boom. Finally, this paper suggests an important policy implication that credit unions themselves and financial regulators should watch out how loan defaults and loan size evolve in order to prevent massive loan defaults that may be caused by future rise in interest rates and possible tightening of regulations.