Financial regulation can have unanticipated consequences in the financial system. The evidence from China’s interbank market shows that banks tend to use newly introduced and lightly regulated financial instruments to get around regulation during their search for funds. Banks facing greater competition or higher liquidity shortages have more incentives to engage in such activities. Such interbank activities are closely associated with banks’ proprietary trading, suggesting the potential risk of financial contagion.
Residential investment has been a key growth engine for China in the last two decades. Total housing investment grew from about 4 percent of GDP in 1997 to a peak of 15 percent of GDP in 2014, with residential investment accounting for more than two-thirds of it. Our analysis indicates that structural changes in the Chinese economy that led to rebalancing toward consumption...
Health systems globally face increasing morbidity and mortality from chronic diseases, yet many — especially in low- and middle-income countries — lack strong primary care. Among recent contributions to understanding how economic incentives can be harnessed to address this challenge is a study in which we analyze China’s efforts to promote primary care management for rural residents with chronic disease...
The Chinese government has been using strong fiscal stimuli to encourage investment. While these fiscal policies, such as investment tax credits, often encourage firm investment, we find that investment tax incentives may generate an unintended reduction of firms’ innovation. Moreover, the crowding-out effect is non-monotonic in the level of financial constraints.
By means of a unique dataset of around half a million Chinese firms, we investigate the link between the use of a QR code-based mobile payment system and financial inclusion.