Is China Living a Minsky Moment? Between the “Lender of Last Resort” and the Chinese Shadow Financial System

After Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008, the Central Bank of China (PBOC) created a big 1.8 trillion dollars package to boost the Chinese economy. It was a necessary key measure not only to prop up the economy, but also to try to preserve the two-digit growth of the GDP that existed before the Great Recession. The financial instability of international financial circuits made necessary the involvement of the central bank. Ten years later, China’s debt explosion went up during the financial crisis, from six to twenty-eight trillion dollars between 2007 and 2016. In other words, it went up from 148 to 260 percent of GDP during the same period. The goal of this article is to analyze whether China is living a “Minsky moment” or not, and what its implications are for international financial markets.     

Bank lending channel in a dual banking system: Why are Islamic banks so responsive?

We examine the interest rate sensitivity of both deposits and credits at Islamic and conventional banks in Turkey. We find that the bank lending channel is especially operative for Islamic banks. Impulse responses for conventional and Islamic banks reveal that Islamic bank depositors’ sensitivity to policy rate changes is substantially larger than that of conventional bank depositors. Next to heavily dependence on deposit funding, we consider that inertia in Islamic bank deposit rates impedes these banks to keep those depositors who consider the opportunity cost of monetary policy rates is unbearable. On the lending side, we obtain similar results, implying that tight monetary policy leads to a larger contraction in Islamic bank credits. This finding is a reflection of the favourable attitude of Islamic banks towards small and medium‐sized enterprise (SME) financing. When similar relationships are analysed for currency and inflation shocks, we again find larger responses for Islamic banks showing the cyclical nature of SME credits.     

Quantitative Easing Forever? Financialisation and the Institutional Legitimacy of the Federal Reserve’s Unconventional Monetary Policy

Scholars of financialisation have argued that the emergence of finance-led grow regimes requires new instruments for effective conduct of economic policy. In this scholarship, central banks have been seen as the most promising actors to utilise one of the most synergetic policies, the maintenance of high and stable prices of financial assets. Since the financial crisis of 2007–8, central banks of the developed world have adopted various unconventional monetary policy measures that serve this function. But will these unconventional measures become institutionally legitimate and institutionalised as conventional practice, as suggested necessary by scholars of financialisation? In this paper, we answer to this question by studying the institutional legitimation of the Federal Reserve’s Quantiative Easing (QE) programmes. We argue that the QE programmes have been legitimated successfully but with institutional legitimation strategies, which cause institutional pressures that question the potential of QE from becoming a regular policy instrument and practice.     

Investigating the causal configurations of cost-efficient firms at the bottom of the pyramid

This study highlights how social and commercial enterprises with local and global presence, balance their economic and social goals, to sustainably serve the bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) markets, predominantly in emerging economies. Employing the lens of transaction cost economics and configurational theory, we propose that successful venturing into the BoP markets, sensitize firms to create appropriate governance mechanisms for reducing transaction costs, resulting in creation and capture of values. Further, these mechanisms enable those firms to attain cost efficiency and sustainability in the process of fulfilling their social objectives. To that end, we employed the case survey method to analyse 42 cases, from the Harvard Business School repository, on multinational enterprises (MNEs) in emerging economies. Further, we used qualitative comparative analysis to uncover the various causal governance configurations that enabled those firms to sustainably serve the BoP markets.     

Credit risk pricing and the rationality of lending decision-making within dual banking systems: A parametric approach

The reduction of non-performing loans, and making correct provisions for them, plays a primary role in the management and minimization of banking credit risk. However, these actions depend primarily upon the cost at which banks may dispose of these bad loans. Hence, this study aims to perceive the price of banks’ credit risk via estimating the shadow price of non-performing loans. We assess and compare the perceived price of the credit risk of Islamic and conventional banks operating in 9 countries from the Middle East and Asia, using a quadratic directional distance function. Following this, we evaluate the impact of different settings of directional vectors on shadow prices by conducting a risk-sensitivity analysis. Applying bootstrap regression, the factors affecting NPLs’ prices are further investigated. The paper concludes that the estimation of the shadow prices of bad loans can provide important elements in favor of credit risk management and, therefore, credit risk mitigation.     

Using reputation for corporate sustainability to tackle banks digitalization challenges

The new landscape in the financial sector, characterized by fierce competition and the entrance of new technological players, has forced banks to speed up their digital transformation. However, for banks, digitalization entails challenges that can hinder the potential benefits and compromise their survival. In this context, we argue that the reputation generated by corporate sustainability (RCS) may offset these digitalization drawbacks. In particular, we find that the combination of RCS and digitalization facilitates in transforming the organizational nature of banks by simultaneously narrowing their boundaries and expanding their scope. We empirically confirm our hypotheses by analyzing a panel of 110 multinational banks from developed countries.     

制度变迁下国有商业银行农村服务网络演化——以农业银行兰考县支行为例

经济转轨背景下农村的银行服务网络呈现出不同于城市的演化特征。从制度变迁角度建构分析框架,基于历史、调查与访谈数据,以农业银行兰考县支行为例,探讨我国商业银行农村服务网络演化动力机制。研究表明:国有商业银行农村服务网络经历了恢复成立后的快速扩张和密集的人工网点服务,市场化改革中农村业务收缩和大规模网点撤并,到新时期人工、自助、电子、代理等多元服务渠道扩张;农村银行服务网络演化是商业银行和制度环境相互作用的空间过程,普惠金融战略下我国特别强调金融服务的均等化和基础金融网点的全覆盖,商业银行不断借助新的伙伴关系开拓农村市场,其中合作代理日益发挥重要作用。不同地区、不同商业银行农村服务网络模式的差异,农村银行服务网络转型对农村社会经济发展、金融生态环境改善、农民金融素养提升的影响等还需进一步研究。     

辽宁省金融脆弱性研究

当前关于金融脆弱性的研究集中于国家这一宏观层面，对于省域金融脆弱性的研究还存在相当大的研究空间。正是基于这样一种相对创新性的视角，在对金融脆弱性现有研究进行综述的基础上对辽宁省的金融脆弱性的诱因进行了分析，并提出推动非银行金融机构的发展、拓展规模较大的银行的非利息收益以提升银行盈利能力以及全力清除不良贷款是应对辽宁省金融脆弱性的可行策略。     

农村集体经营性建设用地价格影响因素的实证分析*——基于江西省余江县179份交易案例

[目的]确定农村集体商服用地、工业用地价格的影响因素,为科学评估农村集体经营性建设用地地价、构建城乡统一建设用地市场提供参考。[方法]利用全国农村土地使用制度改革试点之一的江西省余江县179个交易案例,运用特征价格模型分析农村集体商服用地、工业用地价格的影响因素及各类因素的贡献率。[结果](1)农村集体商服用地价格的主要影响因素依次为乡镇财政收入、人均纯收入、到客运站距离、到国道的距离、教育设施;农村集体工业用地价格的主要影响因素依次为人均纯收入、人均农村居民点面积、到客运站的距离、到国道的距离。(2)社会经济因素、区位交通因素和公共设施因素对集体商服用地价格的贡献度分别为69. 0%、20. 4%和10. 6%;社会经济因素和区位交通因素对集体工业用地价格的贡献度分别为52. 8%和47. 2%。[结论]总体上与国有城镇建设用地价格存在共性规律,但存在部分因素与国有建设用地价格规律存在差异,农村集体经营性建设用地估价不宜完全套用城镇建设用地的思路。