A note on bank loan officers' expectations for credit standards: Evidence from the European bank lending survey

Abstract

We employ quarterly credit standards data from the Bank Lending Survey, covering 14 EU countries for the period 2003 Q1 to 2016 Q1. By linking consecutive surveys and utilizing loan officers' responses regarding actual and expected credit standards, we set out to investigate which expectations formation mechanism best describes loan officers' expectations. According to our findings, bank loan officers' expectations are compatible with the adaptive expectations mechanism.