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Household Finance in China

Russell Cooper, Guozhong Zhu, Sep 20, 2017

We study household financial choices in China and compare them with those in the US. We estimate a structural model where the two countries differ in terms of preferences and institutional arrangements. In the structural estimation, we take into account the effects of important structural changes in the Chinese economy between 1990-2000.

Rise of Bank Competition: Evidence from Banking Deregulation in China

Haoyu Gao, Hong Ru, Robert Townsend, Xiaoguang Yang, Aug 17, 2019

This paper documents a novel trade-off of banking deregulation in the context of China by using loan-level big data. We find that following a deregulation in the form of geographically lowered bank entry barriers, the potential benefits such as the lower interest rates for borrowers were mitigated adversely by the worsening credit allocation. The soft budget constraint...

Carry Trade with Chinese Characteristics

Yi Huang, Ugo Panizza, Richard Portes, Jun 13, 2018

International borrowing by Chinese nationals has increased rapidly over the past 10 years. Some of this borrowing seems to be motivated by carry trade activities. Regulatory arbitrage may have played a role in this trend.

Shadow Banking in a Crisis: Evidence from Fintech During COVID-19

Zhengyang Bao, Difang Huang, Jul 14, 2021

We evaluate the performance of Chinese fintech and bank credit providers during COVID-19. Comparing samples of fintech and bank loan records across the pandemic outbreak, we find that fintech companies are more likely to expand credit access to new and financially constrained borrowers after the start of the pandemic. However, the delinquency rate of fintech loans triples after the outbreak, but there is no significant...

Regional Variation of GDP per Head within China, 1080–1850: Implications for the Great Divergence Debate

Stephen Broadberry, Hanhui Guan, Sep 28, 2022

We provide the first regional breakdown of GDP per head for China from the Song dynasty to the Qing, so that regions of similar size can be compared between Europe and Asia to establish the timing of the Great Divergence of living standards.