Download or read book Risk Taking and Interest Rates written by Seung Jung Lee and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2017-02-10 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We study how low interest rates in the United States affect risk taking in the market of crossborder leveraged corporate loans. To the extent that actions of the Federal Reserve affect U.S. interest rates, our analysis provides evidence of a cross-border spillover effect of monetary policy. We find that before the crisis, lenders made ex-ante riskier loans to non- U.S. borrowers in response to a decline in short-term U.S. interest rates, and, after it, in response to a decline in longer-term U.S. interest rates. Economic uncertainty and risk appetite appear to play a limited role in explaining ex-ante credit risk. Our results highlight the potential policy challenges faced by central banks in affecting credit risk cycles in their own jurisdictions.