The Effect of Macroeconomic Variables on Credit Risk in the Private Commercial Banks Operating in Syria Using ARDL Model

This research aims to investigate the impact of macroeconomic variables on credit risks in the private commercial banks operating in Syria. Considering 10 commercial banks during 2009-2015, we study and analyze a number of macroeconomic variables proposed by the associated economic literature, and it seems that these variables have an important effect on credit risk. Preliminary tests are applied to test for the Stationarity of the selected variables. Besides, a (co-integrating) long-term relationship between the explanatory variables and the dependent variable is investigated using an ARDL model. A Fixed Effect panel model is fitted to assess the potential effects of the considered macro-variables on credits risks. It seems that macroeconomics variables have a significant role in explaining the changes in quality loans portfolio, which causes an increasing in the nonperforming loans in Syrian commercial banks. In effect, it results that there is a negative and statistically significant effect of both economic growth and inflation rate on credit risk, whereas, there is a positive and statistically significant effect of both real interest rate and real effective exchange rate on credit risk