A severe economic downturn brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with high debt levels globally, raises the specter of mounting nonperforming loans (NPLs) in global banking systems. This paper investigates the impact of higher NPL ratios on the availability of bank credit among international lenders and emerging market borrowers. The paper finds that a rise in NPL ratios in both lender and borrower countries is positively associated with higher banking outflows from emerging market economies. Two additional features emerge in the patterns of cross-border banking flows when NPL ratios rise that are related to international credit market imperfections. First, lenders are more responsive to a rise in NPL ratios of same-region borrowers. This is consistent with the “reversion to the mean’’ effect given their generally high exposures to the same-region borrowers. Second, while a high share of US-dollar-denominated debt is generally positively associated with withdrawals of funds from emerging market borrowers, lenders are less responsive to a rise in NPL ratios in emerging market economies if their liabilities are denominated more in US dollars. The results are in line with the “original sin redux” hypothesis.

COVID-19 大流行带来的严重经济衰退，加上全球高债务水平，引发了全球银行系统不良贷款 (NPL) 不断增加的担忧。本文研究了较高的不良贷款率对国际贷方和新兴市场借款人的银行信贷可用性的影响。该论文发现，贷方和借方国家的不良贷款率上升与新兴市场经济体的银行业外流增加呈正相关。当不良贷款率上升时，与国际信贷市场不完善相关的跨境银行流动模式会出现另外两个特征。首先，贷款人对同地区借款人不良贷款率上升的反应更灵敏。鉴于他们对同一地区借款人的风险敞口普遍较高，这与“回归均值”效应一致。其次，虽然美元计价债务的高份额通常与从新兴市场借款人处提取资金呈正相关，但如果新兴市场经济体的债务以美元计价，贷方对不良贷款率上升的反应较小。结果符合“原罪还原”假设。