Why Does the Problem Persist? ‘Rational Rigidity’ and the Plight of Japanese Banks

One of the most perplexing factors in the Japanese financial crisis is the apparently non‐optimal and non‐rational behaviour of Japanese banks. We provide a “rational” explanation for bank behaviour based on a theory of community banking that incorporates Japanese institutional characteristics. We find three implications of community banking – a low lending rate, a low bankruptcy rate, and in particular, institutionalisation of ‘rational rigidity’ (an institutional pledge of no profit maximisation) – in Japanese banks. We argue that this type of banking is viable as long as the economy expands and asset prices go up, which was the case before the asset‐market crash in 1990. The stagnation and free‐fall of asset prices in the 1990s exerted tremendous pressure on Japanese banks but did not paralyse them completely in the 1990s, although there are indications that they failed to restructure distressed large corporations in some sectors, notably real estate. Thus, the problem is not that paralysed banks are blocking recovery, but that their current institutionalised rigidity in banking practices is no longer viable because private enterprises in the market economy are suffering from asset‐price deflation and economic stagnation.     

银行利润对经济增长影响的实证分析——基于中美两国数据的对比

随着中国利率市场化改革的深化,银行拥有更多的经营自主权,但银行在信贷市场中所处的垄断地位却没有随着利率市场化改革而相应改变。运用VECM模型对中国12家上市银行及同时期美国商业银行的利润增长对经济发展的影响进行了实证研究,结果表明美国的银行利润增长显著促进了经济发展。相比之下,中国银行利润增长对经济发展的长期影响并不显著,而四大国有银行利润增长对经济发展有显著的阻碍作用,非国有银行利润增长则对经济发展有显著的促进作用。四大国有银行在信贷市场中的垄断地位导致其对经济发展产生阻碍,这意味着中国利率市场化改革及资本市场改革仍不彻底。因此,应鼓励非国有股份制银行发展,并进一步深化利率市场化改革及资本市场改革。     

Japan's Lost Decade and its Financial System

After briefly explaining the causes of the Japanese asset‐price bubble in the 1980s, this paper analyses why the bursting of the bubble developed into a full‐fledged financial crisis in the late 1990s. In order to cope with this crisis, the Government has injected capital directly into the banking sector and banks have written off enormous amounts of bad loans. However, the Japanese financial sector remains very weak and Japan still faces a number of problems in its financial system. Firstly, the profit margin of banks is too small to cover the increased default risk following the bursting of the bubble, and there are market distortions created by the government‐backed financial institutions and the requirements on new lending to small and medium sized companies. Secondly, banks still have excessive stock investment and crossholding of shares between banks and other companies has weakened the market discipline on entrenched management. Thirdly, the government guarantee of all banking‐sector liabilities should be removed. Once the financial system is stabilised, a risk‐adjusted deposit insurance premium should be introduced so as to strengthen market discipline on banks, and the huge postal saving system should be privatised to create a level‐playing field among deposit taking financial institutions. Besides the foregoing, the weak corporate governance structure of Japanese financial institutions has to be remodelled. The management of banks has shielded themselves by extensive cross‐shareholdings, especially with life insurance companies. There has been extensive mutual provision of capital, most large life insurance companies have weak corporate governance, and many of the large shareholders of banks are life insurance companies. This double gearing between banks and life insurance companies has therefore weakened the market control of Japanese financial institutions.     

Has Japan entered a new era of financial constraints?

The collapse of Japanese asset prices in the early 1990s-which weakened the balance-sheet positions of banks, firms, and households-has led some observers to suggest that “balance-sheet problems” may have contributed to the recent economic downturn and may impede a recovery. In this article, we conclude that balance-sheet problems did not and will not play a significant role in depressing the Japanese economy. First, while asset prices appear to have some explanatory power in loan demand and supply relationships, we find that asset price shocks in the 1990s had little effect on borrowing and lending, other than through traditional wealth effects on aggregate demand. Second, we find little evidence that bank lending was tighter than usual compared to downturns of the 1990–1993 magnitude. Finally, we find some puzzling evidence that borrowers lowered their appetite for loans, even after accounting for sharp declines in aggregate demand and asset prices.     

Host-country location decisions of early movers and latecomers: The role of local density and experiential learning

Service firms such as banks and hotels typically locate multiple foreign affiliates in the same host country. Often, these location patterns occur in waves with early movers followed by latecomers; for example, the early entries of Japanese banks into the U.S. market in the 1970s and 1980s were followed by emerging-market Asian banks in the 1990s. Using insights from the agglomeration and organizational learning literatures, we argue that local density and experiential learning affect location choices within a host country, and that these relationships differ between early movers and latecomers. We test and find support for our arguments using a sample of Asian banks in the United States over 1997–2003.     

Can Japan Make a Comeback?

Since the beginning of the 1990s Japan has experienced economic stagnation. The economy had been allowed to overheat in the 1980s and a bubble had been built up. When this burst, there was massive asset‐deflation, which led to a banking crisis. The bad debts were not faced up to effectively. Japanese banks could not achieve high enough margins to recapitalise themselves, and the government was for a long time reluctant to intervene effectively. The shock made economic agents more pessimistic, which led to an imbalance between savings and investment‐demand. Excess savings were placed abroad and used to finance a domestic fiscal deficit, but this was not enough to close the gap and sustain growth. To be able to run a large current account surplus the yen needed to depreciate, but this was not achieved due to expectations about a future appreciation. The strategy to get out of the liquidity trap would include credible inflation targeting and yen depreciation. Monetary policy should have an inflation target well above zero per cent. Such macroeconomic measures need to be complemented by structural reforms such as deregulation of financial services, competition policy and reallocation of public investments. The Japanese development model with close connections between firms and banks needs to be reformed. Japan should be able to achieve stable growth again, but since the catch‐up phase is over one would not expect growth in Japan to be higher than in other developed countries, even if Japan undertakes the needed reforms.     

浅议我国商业银行破产的法律问题

市场经济的发展,带动了金融业的繁荣,尤其是近年来,我国商业银行迅速发展。但同时也要看到优胜劣汰是市场经济的法则,对于经营管理不善,符合破产条件的商业银行,应该允许其依照法律的规定退出市场。本文分析了我国商业银行破产法律制度中存在的一些问题,并在此基础上,提出了一些合理的建议。     

Why Do Japanese Non-Local Regional Banks Enter Other Prefectures Under the Region-Based Relationship Banking Policy?

In this study, we investigate the market characteristics of prefectures in which non-local regional banks of other prefectures choose to enter and their motivations for doing so, considering the Japanese government’s requirements for regional financial institutions to actively stimulate their local economies. In particular, by pooling prefecture-level data, the market characteristics of prefectures that experience more entrances by non-local regional banks compared with other prefectures are examined. It was found that entrance by non-local regional banks is more common in prefectures containing active high-performing companies. Hence, it can be considered that non-local regional banks that are not satisfied with lending opportunities in their home prefectures enter other prefectures to increase their lending opportunities to high-performing companies. This study contributes to the clarification of why many regional banks do not concentrate on businesses within their local regions and intentionally enter other prefectures, which is in contrast with the intent of the region-based relationship banking policy.     

美国商业银行内部控制制度及其对我国的启示

随着我国经济的不断高速发展,金融银行业在国民经济中的地位和重要性也日趋凸现,本文从我国国有商业银行内部控制制度的现状分析入手,详细介绍了美国商业银行内控的基本理论,并以此为依据,提出了建立、健全我国商业银行内部控制制度的方法和措施,从而对我国商业银行的发展起到一定的借鉴作用。     

The shape of post-bubble Japanese business: Preparing for growth in the new millennium

The Japanese economy, the second largest in the world and the lead economy in fast growing Asia, was in a major and structural recession in the first half of the 1990s. Changes necessary for Japan to renew its economic growth must reflect not only the effects of the post-bubble recession of the early 1990s, but also the end of the cold war and the new social values, demographics, and politics in Japan. This article is an analytical review of postwar economic growth in Japan that led to the early 1990s recession, and an assessment of the shape of post-bubble Japanese business as it prepares for growth in the new millennium, and the implications of these changes on Japanese and non-Japanese firms.     

Cyclicality of lending in Africa: The influence of bank ownership

Ownership structure of banks has dramatically changed over the past two decades in African countries with privatization and foreign bank entry, including the expansion of Pan-African banks. The objective of this paper is to investigate how bank ownership influences cyclicality of lending in Africa. We are then able to assess how changes in bank ownership influence the economy. To this end, we measure the sensitivity of bank loan growth to GDP per capita growth of the host country with dynamic GMM estimations. We use panel data from 190 commercial banks covering 20 African countries spanning the period from 2002 to 2015. We find that lending of African banks is procyclical for all types of banks. However, we observe that Pan-African banks are the least procyclical banks, while no significant difference in procyclicality is observed between state-owned banks, domestic private banks, and other foreign banks. In addition, we find evidence that foreign banks are influenced by GDP per capita growth of their home country. Therefore, our findings support the view that the expansion of Pan-African banks contributes to reduce cyclicality of lending. However, foreign bank entry can enhance the transmission of external shocks.     

Marketing Organisation and Policy in the Cotton Trade: M'connel & Kennedy of Manchester 1795–1835

The Japanese financial system is regarded as a key factor behind Japan's remarkable post-war growth. The main bank arrangements, linking companies with a principal source of funds, and complementary institutional networks were complex and intricate, and underpinned industrial investment and expansion. In the 1950s, the city banks, as the main banks of manufactures, were asked to supply large amounts of funds to their clients, acting as substitutes of the stock market. As their liquidity decreased, post-war reconstruction policies reduced their risk-bearing capabilities. In order to stabilise the system and to sustain the funds needed for strategic industries, the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan began actively to regulate the financial markets, while the Ministry of International Trade and Industry co-ordinated policy with the industrial sector. It was this system of complementary institutions, including the main banks, long-term financial institutions, and government agencies, which enabled Japan's high-speed growth.     

产权性质视角下的银行业审计质量与经济利益关系研究——基于偏最小二乘法的估计

以中国2001—2010年A股上市商业银行为研究样本,运用偏最小二乘法,检验不同产权性质的商业银行支付给审计师的经济利益与审计质量的关联性。研究发现:相对于非政府控制的上市银行,政府控制的上市银行支付给审计师的经济利益越大,盈余管理幅度越高;在为政府控制银行提供业务的过程中,银行给予审计师的经济利益过高,导致审计师未能有效地抑制银行的盈余管理行为,审计质量受损,而在为非政府控制的上市银行提供业务情形中,审计质量并未随着经济利益的增加而降低。     

The Credit Crisis and the Moral Responsibility of Professionals in Finance

Starting from MacIntyre’s virtue ethics, we investigate several codes of conduct of banks to identify the type of virtues that are needed to realize their mission. Based on this analysis, we define three core virtues: honesty, due care, and accuracy. We compare and contrast these codes of conduct with the actual behavior of banks that led to the credit crisis and find that in some cases banks did not behave according to the moral standards they set themselves. However, although banks and the professionals working in them can be blamed for what they did, one should also acknowledge that the institutional context of the free market economy in which they operated made it difficult to live up to the core values lying at the basis of the codes of conduct. Given the neo-liberal free market system, innovative and risky strategies to enhance profits are considered desirable for the sake of shareholder’s interests. A return to the core virtues in the financial sector will therefore only succeed if a renewed sense of responsibility in the sector is supported by institutional changes that allow banks to put their mission into practice.     

Japan's Negative Risk Premium in Interest Rates: The Liquidity Trap and the Fall in Bank Lending

Japan's interest rates have been compressed toward zero because of pressure coming through the foreign exchanges. Twenty years of current‐account surpluses have led to a huge buildup of claims – mainly dollars – on foreigners. Because of ongoing fluctuations in the yen/dollar exchange rate, Japanese financial institutions will only willingly hold these dollar claims if the nominal yield on them is substantially higher than on yen assets. In the 1990s to 2002 as US interest rates have come down, portfolio equilibrium has been sustained only when nominal interest rates on yen assets have been forced toward zero. One consequence is the now infamous liquidity trap for Japanese monetary policy. A second consequence is the erosion of the normal profit margins of Japan's commercial banks, leading to a slump in new bank credit and an inability to grow out of the overhang of old bad loans.     

Japan's International Tourism in the Context of its International Economic Relations

Despite the rapid growth of the Japanese economy, Japan still accounts for a relatively small share of international tourism as a recipient. However, Japan's outward tourism has grown to the point where it is the fourth largest tourism generator. This article analyses the role of tourist flows in Japan's external economic relationships and in the structural adjustments in the Japanese economy needed to correct its perceived external imbalance. Together with the massive and increasing outflows of long-term capital from Japan, increasing outward tourism could become an important factor in achieving external balance. Future policies and forecasts are also analysed.     

中国经济波动对日本经济脉冲效果的分析

本文通过向量自回归理论的脉冲响应函数,对中日双边经贸关系建立了相应的冲击反应模型,在实证的基础上定量分析了中日间经济相互冲击的效果。同时利用方差分解技术,分析了各冲击因素对两国经济的影响及其贡献率大小,实证结果显示:中国经济对日本经济的冲击效果相当明显,日本经济对中国经济的依赖性越来越大。     

Japanese trade unions at the crossroads: dilemmas and opportunities created by globalization

Japanese trade unions have contributed much to the economic stability and success of Japanese enterprises. Globalization has, however, placed substantial pressure on the Japanese industrial relations system and, in turn, upon the enterprise union system. Not all changes can be directly attributed to globalization. We contend, however, that the success of Japanese firms, both in exports and in overseas production, has made the Japanese economy reliant on a strong world economy. Economic downturns that have been witnessed in a number of countries in 1990s have weakened the demand for Japanese export products. This, in combination with the Japanese banking and financial crises, has created pressure for an overhaul of employment and human resource management systems. This article examines these pressures and the response by trade unions.     

The Lanchester Engine Company Limited

The Japanese financial system is regarded as a key factor behind Japan's remarkable post-war growth. The main bank arrangements, linking companies with a principal source of funds, and complementary institutional networks were complex and intricate, and underpinned industrial investment and expansion. In the 1950s, the city banks, as the main banks of manufacturers, were asked to supply large amounts of funds to their clients, acting as substitutes of the stock market. As their liquidity decreased, post-war reconstruction policies reduced their risk-bearing capabilities. In order to stabilise the system and to sustain the funds needed for strategic industries, the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan began actively to regulate the financial markets, while the Ministry of International Trade and Industry co-ordinated policy with the industrial sector. It was this system of complementary institutions, including the main banks, long-term financial institutions, and government agencies, which enabled Japan's high-speed growth.     

对国有商业银行治理结构的探讨

公司治理改革已经成为一个普遍关注的焦点问题。这一改革不限于某个特定地区或某些国家,而是一个全球性现象。随着市场经济体制改革的深入以及世界贸易组织的加入,我国国有商业银行面临越来越大的冲击。构建良好的银行治理结构是我国国有商业银行改革的关键。目前我国国有商业银行公司治理结构存在一定的缺陷,主要有产权结构单一,委托代理链条长,存在明显的内部人控制,缺乏有效的管理者激励机制以及信息披露制度方面的问题。为此,针对我国国有商业银行现存缺陷,提出了相应的改进建议。