Effects of borrowers' quality on the size of market response to bank loan announcements in China

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of borrowers' quality on the size of market reaction to bank loan announcements in the Chinese financial market, where poor quality borrowers are prevalent and the banking system is highly controlled by the Chinese government. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses different measures to proxy for borrower quality, including the borrowers' information opaqueness, possibility of expropriation and their financial status. A cross‐sectional regression analysis was conducted to investigate the relationship between the market response to bank loan announcements and the borrowers' quality. Findings – It is revealed that the negative market response to bank loan announcements is particularly significant for borrowing firms with lower quality, including firms that are opaque, have a higher possibility of expropriation or tunnelling, have ineffective expropriation‐reduction mechanisms, are controlled by the state and are in financial distress, for the sample period 1996 to 2009. Furthermore, to test whether there is any significant difference on the effects of the borrowers' quality on the size of the market response to bank loan announcements following China's announcement of share‐split reform in 2005, this paper splits the sample period into sub samples, 1996 to 2004 and 2004 to 2005. The results on the effects of the borrowers' quality on the size of market response to bank loan announcements for the sub sample period 1996 to 2004 are similar to those for the full sample 1996 to 2009. Research limitations/implications – The paper's findings imply that the reforms in the Chinese financial market since 2005 do not have any significant effects on the borrowers' quality on the size of the market response to bank loan announcements for the full sample period. Originality/value – This paper differs from previous studies in regards to the sample period and the measurements of the possibility of expropriation or tunnelling. The paper contributes to the banking and corporate governance literature.