Boom and bust, Chinese style: Multi-task regulatory dilemma and China’s stock market crisis in 2015

Abstract

China’s stock market experienced a major boom and bust between 2014 and 2015, with profound implications on China’s financial stability and governance reforms. Drawing on the organizational studies literature on hybrids, this article analyses how the hybridization of multiple logics has shaped the regulatory incentives, policy process and market dynamics in the evolution of China’s stock market crisis in 2015. It argues that China’s stock market governance has been trapped by the multi-task regulatory dilemma with logic volatility endogenous to its hybrid regime, which poses fundamental constraints on China’s financial stability and regulatory effectiveness. It concludes by discussing the alternative approaches of managing hybridity with integration and differentiation strategies in China’s post-crisis financial governance reforms.