Summary Using panel data collected in 2005, we evaluate how bank size, discretion over credit, incentive schemes, competition, and the institutional environment affect lending to small- and medium-sized enterprises in China. We deal with the endogeneity problem using instrumental variables, and...

Purpose – This paper seeks to understand the evolution of financial intermediation in the course of China's economic transition. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on a unique data set collected by the authors and other collaborators from a 1998 survey of financial...

Decentralization can complement market liberalization by strengthening incentives of agents to respond to market signals. However, in China banks centralized lending authority following financial reforms in the mid-1990s. We present a new theory of financial decentralization in which...

Decentralization can complement market liberalization by strengthening incentives of agents to exploit local information in response to market signals. In China, however, banks centralized lending authority following financial reforms in the mid-1990s. We offer a new theory of financial...

The purpose of this study to help shed light on the entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs and enterprise growth in Wenzhou. The study is done by relying on a probabilistic firm survey that we carried out in Wenzhou in early 2006 for three industries: shoes, eyeglasses and general equipment. Not a...

Using data from a recent survey of bank and enterprise managers and government officials in southern China, we present a new explanation for the rise and fall of collectively-owned township and village enterprises (TVEs) based on the willingness of banks to finance collective enterprise...

In China, land is reallocated on either a full-scale or a partial basis. By employing a unique farm survey that deliberately draws a distinction between full-scale and partial land reallocations, and by decomposing their respective expropriation risk effects, we find that the significantly...

Employing droughts and floods to proxy for changes in precipitation, this paper shows nomadic incursions into settled Han Chinese regions over a period of more than two thousand years—the most enduring clash of civilizations in history—to be positively correlated with less rainfall and...