Off-balance-sheet (OBS) activities are special means of credit expansion of commercial banks, which can affect banks' assets allocation decisions, loans supplies, and the bank lending channel of monetary policy transmission. This paper analyses the impact of OBS activities on banks' asset...

China's recent investment boom looks much like the investment boom in the Asian tigers of the 1990s. Both were marked by a surge in bank credit to the private sector, a real estate boom and questions about the quality of domestic financial intermediation. Yet, China has few of the external...