Information sharing, credit booms, and financial stability: lessons for developing economies

The global financial crisis has highlighted the vulnerability of financial systems and stressed the need for improving the management of financial vulnerability. The financial stability issue in low-income countries has received less attention in recent years, insofar as they have been less impacted by the global financial crisis than emerging economies. Guérineau and Léon (2016) investigated the determinants of financial fragility in advanced and developing countries, focusing on the interaction between credit booms and credit information sharing systems. The results showed that credit information sharing reduces financial fragility in both groups, but transmission channels are different. For advanced and emerging countries, credit information sharing reduces the likelihood of credit booms and mitigates their detrimental impact on financial fragility. For less developed countries, credit information sharing mainly has a direct effect by improving credit portfolio quality.