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Banking Competition in China

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Chinese Banking Reform

Part of the book series: The Nottingham China Policy Institute Series ((NCP))

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Abstract

Competition is important in any industry, with impacts on a wide range of issues such as productivity, innovation, and consumer welfare. In banking, competition is even more important because of its externalities beyond the banking industry. Anti-competitive behaviour of banks may have far-reaching influences on social welfare and well-being of the economy with implications for not only banking and financial services sector regulation and supervision but also financial stability and macroeconomic policy. The market-oriented banking reform in China started from deregulation in order to increase competition in the sector. After more than two decades of reform, the banking sector has undergone significant changes and it is of great interest to understand whether the sector has become more competitive. This chapter addresses this issue by assessing the degree of banking competition and its evolution over the period 1995–2015 using multiple competition measures.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Iwata (1974) model estimates conjectural variation values for firms that offer homogenous products. It is not widely employed in the banking literature.

  2. 2.

    This “continuous” interpretation of the H-statistics is not spelt out in Panzar and Rosse (1987). The comparisons between countries or banks are correct subject to a stronger assumption of a constant price elasticity of demand.

  3. 3.

    Following the literature, the choice of the fixed effect estimators over random effect estimators is confirmed by the Hausman test.

  4. 4.

    Banks with more than 50% foreign ownership are classified as foreign banks.

  5. 5.

    The deposit insurance program was introduced in 2015—the last year of our sample period in China. Thus during our sample period, there is no formal deposit insurance program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Middlesex University, London, UK

    Chunxia Jiang

  2. University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Shujie Yao

  3. Chongqing University, Chongqing, China

    Shujie Yao

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  1. Chunxia Jiang
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Correspondence to Chunxia Jiang .

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Jiang, C., Yao, S. (2017). Banking Competition in China. In: Chinese Banking Reform. The Nottingham China Policy Institute Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63925-3_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63925-3_5

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