Research shows how a disaster can impact an economy beyond the simple rebuilding process. The Sichuan earthquake induced a lifestyle shift in households toward greater spending and a structural shift of the economy away from industrial production.
China’s stock market imposes various trading restrictions such as daily price limits and trading suspension rules, which are intended to stabilize the market during turmoil. During China’s stock market crash in the summer of 2015, these trading restrictions made many highly valued stocks non-tradable and consequently caused mutual funds facing redemption pressure or with precautious concerns to sell other tradable stocks, exacerbating their price drops.
We identify bank loans to China’s local government financing vehicles and find that 1.7% of the loans that matured during the sample period failed to make the due payments. The LGFV loan default rate is much higher for commercial banks than for the China Development Bank, which provides more comprehensive financing for local governments than typical commercial banks. This selective default pattern is weaker during the ¥4-trillion stimulus period but stronger after 2010 when commercial banks exited the LGFV market.
We study credit allocation across firms and its real effects during China’s economic stimulus plan of 2009-2010 using loan-level data from the 19 largest Chinese banks matched with firm-level data on manufacturing firms. We find that the stimulus-driven credit expansion significantly affected firm borrowing, investment, and employment. The plan disproportionately favored state-owned firms and firms with a lower marginal product of capital, reversing the process of capital reallocation that characterized China’s high growth before 2008.
The role of banks in the Chinese bond market, the third largest in the world, is greatly underestimated when proxied only through the share of issuance. For the future growth and deepening of the Chinese bond market it will be important to lower reliance on banks in order for the bond market to play its intended role as a spare tire of the financial system.