6 The US corporate debt market was not so regulated but it was a vastly reduced market in size in this period, after the extremely high rates of default in the  5  Paolo Mauro, Nathan Sussman and Yishay Yafeh (2000), ‘Emerging Market Spreads: Then Versus Now’, IMF Working Paper, WP00/190, November (available at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2000/wp00190.pdf).
While no direct link can be established between lending rates and credit off-take, simultaneous and intensive efforts will have to be undertaken by the banking system to remove the procedural and transactional rigidities in the delivery of credit, particularly to  2  BIS Review 3/2004  agriculture and small industries.