Banking Deregulation Research Articles

The effect of deregulation on bank risk-taking in China: a balance sheet capacity perspective

PurposeThe impact of banking deregulation on firms and economic growth is heavily researched, but not the effects on banks’ risk-taking. This study aims to investigate the impact of China’s 2009 banking deregulation on bank risk-taking, particularly from a balance sheet capacity perspective.Design/methodology/approachUsing a difference-in-differences approach, this study examines how deregulation affects bank risk-taking. A three-stage regression strategy is employed to conduct mechanism analysis.FindingsThe results reveal that deregulated banks exhibit higher levels of risk-taking. Mechanism analysis confirms the bank balance sheet capacity channel: deregulation helps strengthen the net interest margin of deregulated banks, which enhances their balance sheet capacity and subsequently increases their risk appetite. In addition, deregulation improves firms’ access to long-term credit in regions with limited credit availability, especially for smaller firms, thereby expanding the financial sector’s service outreach.Practical implicationsWhile banking deregulation enhances credit availability for firms and supports the real economy, it also raises banks’ risk-taking, posing challenges to financial stability. Our study highlights the trade-off between supporting the real economy and maintaining financial stability under banking deregulation.Originality/valueThis study fills a gap in research on the effects of banking deregulation on bank risk-taking, highlighting the critical role of balance sheet capacity in this process.

Bank Competition and Formation of Zombie Firms: Evidence from Banking Deregulation in China

Bank Competition and Formation of Zombie Firms: Evidence from Banking Deregulation in China

How does FinTech development drive corporate innovation? Fresh evidence from the perspective of financial supply

By constructing a city-level financial-technology (FinTech) development dataset, this study examines the impact of FinTech on corporate-innovation behavior from a financial-supply perspective. The results reveal that FinTech promotes corporate innovation by reducing corporate-financing constraints and financing costs, alleviating information asymmetry, and expanding financing channels. This promotion effect is more pronounced for private, small, and young firms, firms with fewer fixed assets, and those located in low-regulation intensity areas. Moreover, credit-based FinTech companies have a greater impact on business innovation. In addition, bank deregulation and increased bank competition crowd out the financial supply of FinTech for innovation financing. Knowledge of these impacts can help corporate managers, governments, and financial regulators to formulate more effective development strategies to promote corporate innovation.

Financial development and labour productivity growth in stagnant industries

ABSTRACT In recent decades, the US economy has experienced the flow-on effects of rapid expansion by industries with low productivity growth. We investigate whether financial development increases labour productivity growth in these so-called stagnant industries, with analysis revealing remarkable post-1980 US interstate banking deregulation. These improvements are not an artefact of growing consumer demand, nor driven by skilled labour migration. Rather, they are the likely outcome of improved capital allocation and enhanced credit access for small firms. Our findings underscore the pivotal role of financial development in revitalizing stagnant sectors, and mitigating productivity disparities across industries.

Softening the Blow: US State-Level Banking Deregulation and Sectoral Reallocation after the China Trade Shock

U.S. state-level banking deregulation during the 1980's mitigated the impact of the China trade shock (CTS) on local economies (states and commuting zones) a decade later, in the 1990s. Local economies, where local banking markets opened up earlier, were also effectively financially more integrated by the 1990's and saw smaller declines in house prices, wages, and income following the CTS. We explain this pattern in a theoretical model that emphasizes the stabilizing effect of financial integration on demand for housing and on housing prices: faced with an adverse shock to their region's terms-of-trade (i.e. the CTS), households in more open states can more easily access credit to smooth consumption. This stabilizes consumer demand for housing, keeps the relative price of housing up, stabilizes wages in the non-tradable sector and thus facilitates the sectoral reallocation of labor away from import-exposed manufacturing towards the housing sector. This in turn stabilizes income and consumption. We corroborate these predictions of our model in state-and commuting zone level data. Then, using granular bank-county-level data, we show that household consumption smoothing in response to the CTS was easier in financially open areas, because geographically diversified banks were more elastic in their lending response to household's increased demand for credit. Our findings highlight that household access to finance is important to ease adjustment after asymmetric terms-of-trade shocks in monetary unions, in particular when the geographical mobility of labor is limited.

Real asset liquidity and accounting conservatism: evidence from asset redeployability

PurposeThis study examines the implications of real asset liquidity for accounting conservatism. We investigate whether the liquidity of a firm’s physical assets mitigates lenders’ demand for conservatism by increasing the amount lenders can recover if the firm is liquidated, a theoretical prediction in Göx and Wagenhofer (2009).Design/methodology/approachWe use an asset redeployability index as a proxy for firm-level real (physical) asset liquidity and adopt ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions in the test. We also investigate the differential impact of real asset liquidity on conservatism in two unique settings where lenders’ demand for accounting conservatism varies (loan initiation and bank deregulation).FindingsWe find that accounting conservatism decreases as real asset liquidity increases. The negative effect of real asset liquidity on conservatism increases as the quantity of the firm’s real assets increases, and the negative association is strengthened when firms face high financing constraints and have access to public debt markets. The moderating effect of real asset liquidity on lenders’ demand for conservatism increases (decreases) when real asset liquidity is more (less) important to lenders.Originality/valueThis study provides direct empirical evidence for the theoretical prediction in Göx and Wagenhofer (2009). Prior research shows that real asset liquidity impacts a firm’s capital structure and investment decisions (Campello and Giambona, 2013; Kim and Kung, 2017; Ortiz-Molina and Phillips, 2014; Williamson, 1988). We complement this literature by providing evidence that real asset liquidity also plays a role in financial reporting by reducing accounting conservatism.

Bank deregulation and corporate social responsibility

We show how external credit market development can affect corporate social responsibility. Using a sample of US public firms over the period 1991–2010, we find that bank deregulation negatively affects CSR performance. We argue that deregulation-induced banking competition enhances credit accessibility, thereby reducing firms’ incentives to pursue CSR as a means of securing stakeholder rewards. Empirical evidence shows that firms increase their use of debt financing in response to the intensified banking competition, and these firms experience a more pronounced decline in CSR performance. We alleviate the potential concern that the observed decline in CSR could be attributed to changes in bank monitoring following deregulation. Further analyses find that firms reduce CSR regardless of their material nature, suggesting that the primary driver of CSR could be the trade-off between costs and returns. Overall, our findings shed light on the strategic motives of CSR, which exhibits adaptability in response to business dynamism.

Financial development and the impact of FDI on firm innovation: Evidence from bank deregulation in China

Financial development and the impact of FDI on firm innovation: Evidence from bank deregulation in China

Corporate bankruptcy and banking deregulation: The effect of financial leverage

We investigate the impact of deregulation-induced banking competition on corporate credit risk. Although banking competition does not, on average, affect corporate bankruptcy rates, we find that it causes corporate bankruptcies to increase significantly for high-leverage firms. We show that higher borrowing costs for high-leverage firms post-deregulation and the resulting credit rationing may be key factors behind our findings. The effect of deregulation lasts for up to seven years after the introduction of deregulation and originates mainly from firms that have high short-term debt and are financially constrained. Our results suggest that banking competition, which is expected to expand lending and reduce its cost, may, in fact, create more challenging credit conditions, particularly for firms that are more heavily dependent on external funding.

Financial development and population growth: Evidence from bank concentration in China

Financial development and population growth: Evidence from bank concentration in China

Bank competition and firm greenwashing: Evidence from China

Bank competition and firm greenwashing: Evidence from China

Bank branching and corporate tax avoidance: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of banking deregulation in China

ABSTRACT Using the small and medium-sized commercial banks’ market entry reform policy implemented in 2009 in China as a quasi-natural experiment of banking deregulation, we examine its effect on corporate tax avoidance. Our empirical results show that banking deregulation significantly reduces corporate tax avoidance. Banking deregulation not only promotes the expansion of joint-stock banks and city commercial banks, but also increases the credit supply and bank competition in the region. Further tests imply that banking deregulation restrains corporate tax avoidance through two channels: alleviating financial constraints and strengthening external monitoring. Our paper sheds new light on the spillover effects from regulations in the banking sector to tax management behaviours in the corporate sector.

Bank Deregulation and Private Health Insurance

Bank Deregulation and Private Health Insurance

The Impact of Credit Market Development on Auditor Choice: Evidence from Banking Deregulation

ABSTRACTWe exploit the staggered state‐level adoption of the Riegle‐Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act (IBBEA) to examine how banking deregulation and the resulting increase in bank competition affect firms’ auditor choices. We find that an exogenous increase in the degree of interstate branch banking deregulation leads to a reduction in firms’ propensity to engage a Big N or industry expert auditor. This main result, when combined with our cross‐sectional analyses, offers evidence suggesting that deregulation leads to less demand for higher quality auditors because (1) firms have increased access to credit, which reduces the benefits of higher audit quality; (2) entering banks’ lending expertise substitutes for higher quality financial statements; (3) incumbent banks with less lending expertise seek to protect their rents by preferring that borrowers provide lower quality financial statement information; and (4) external stakeholders delegate their monitoring to banks to a greater degree, resulting in less demand for higher quality financial statements. As such, our study sheds light on how the U.S. credit market's infrastructure shapes firms’ auditor choice decisions.

Revisiting the effect of bank deregulation on income inequality

Revisiting the effect of bank deregulation on income inequality

Banking structural reforms and top income shares: regulate or deregulate?

Abstract This article investigates if, and to what extent, banking structural reforms may affect the top income shares over time. Canada and Italy are used as case studies, as both countries undertook a major deregulation and liberalization process within their banking sector in the early 1990s. These banking policies aimed at privatizing the banking sector and reintroducing the quasi universal banking model. The evaluation of these policy packages is undertaken by implementing the Synthetic Control Method. Findings point out, overall, a robust and substantial increase of some of the top income shares in both countries, over the post-deregulation period. This work contributes by also identifying the main potential mechanisms—both direct and indirect—via which banking deregulation might have operated.

Banking deregulation and export product quality

Banking deregulation and export product quality

The effect of banking deregulation on R&D investment: Evidence from the cross-regional operation of city banks

The effect of banking deregulation on R&D investment: Evidence from the cross-regional operation of city banks

Banking Integration and Capital Misallocation: Evidence from China

Abstract Using the staggered intercity but within-province deregulation of local banks in China as exogenous variations, we evaluate the effect of banking integration across geographical segmentation on capital misallocation. Based on an administrative data set comprehensively covering Chinese manufacturing firms, we find that for firms with initially high marginal revenue products of capital (MRPK), the integration increases physical capital by 19.3%, and reduces MRPK by 33.1% relative to low MRPK firms. Our findings are more pronounced for non-state-owned firms and firms with higher exposure to integrated banks. Integration also significantly increases the responsiveness of firms’ investments to deposit shock on other cities within the same province. (JEL G21, G32, D24) Received October 12, 2022; editorial decision July 11, 2023 by Editor Isil Erel

Less Bank Regulation, More Non-Bank Lending

Bank deregulation in the form of the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act facilitated the entry of non-bank lenders into the market for syndicated loans during the pre-2008 credit boom. Institutional investors disproportionately purchase tranches of loans originated by universal banks able to cross-sell loans and underwriting services to firms (as permitted by the repeal). A shock to cross-selling intensity increases loan liquidity at origination and over time. The mechanism is that non-loan exposures ensure monitoring even when banks retain small loan shares. Our findings complement the conventional view that regulatory arbitrage caused the rise of non-bank lenders.