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Market structure, performance, and efficiency of the Chinese banking sector

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Abstract

The Chinese banking system is evolving from a mono-bank system to one involving many banks of varied types and functions and there is a heated debate on whether competition can help to improve the performance and efficiency of the banks. This paper tests five hypotheses that have been proposed in the literature on the relationship between market structure, profitability, and efficiency using data envelopment analysis with a panel data of the 14 largest nationwide banks in China during the period of 1998–2007. The empirical results show clearly that neither the structure-conduct performance nor the efficient structure hypotheses hold in China. The strongest support is for the relative market power hypothesis that suggests that banks with differentiated services and products are those with higher market shares, and that they are able exercise their market power to obtain higher profits by setting higher prices. Technical efficiency has a significant effect upon bank profitability and the policy makers should promote further competition in the Chinese banking sector.

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Notes

  1. The People’s Construction Bank of China changed its name to “China Construction Bank” on 26 March 1996.

  2. Equation 2 is to test if the technical and scale efficiencies influence the concentration levels as suggested by the ES hypothesis. In this regression model, the dependent variable is an industry variable (market concentration) while the explanatory variables are firm-specific variables. This model has been employed in many studies including Berger (1995) with 10 years of market concentration data and Goldberg and Rai (1996) with 4 years.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shantou University Business School, Shantou University, Shantou, 515063, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China

    Qichang Ye & Zongling Xu

  2. Hong Kong Hunter Development Company Limited, 23 Hong Shing Street, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China

    Dan Fang

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  1. Qichang Ye
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  2. Zongling Xu
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  3. Dan Fang
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Correspondence to Qichang Ye.

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Ye, Q., Xu, Z. & Fang, D. Market structure, performance, and efficiency of the Chinese banking sector. Econ Change Restruct 45, 337–358 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10644-012-9123-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10644-012-9123-6

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