Deposit insurance system, risk-adjusted premium and bank systemic risk: Evidence from China

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate whether and how the Deposit Insurance (DI) system and its Risk-adjusted Premium (RAP) scheme affect the systemic risk of Chinese banks. Based on bank-level panel data from 2007 to 2020 and the difference-in-differences (DID) method, we find that the establishment of the explicit DI system in China increases bank systemic risk, while the implementation of RAP alleviates this negative impact by reducing systemic risk. We further find the mechanism behind this phenomenon that bank profit acts as a mediator. We also find evidence for international heterogeneity using cross-country data and show that, as China has a longstanding implicit government guarantee, the establishment of explicit DI actually reduces the extent to which banks are protected, thus increasing bank systemic risk. Our study highlights the specificity of Chinese DI system, offers important policy implications for the design of financial safety nets in China and worldwide.