IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/ecopln/v45y2012i4p337-358.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Qichang Ye
  • Zongling Xu
  • Dan Fang

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. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012

Suggested Citation

  • Qichang Ye & Zongling Xu & Dan Fang, 2012. "Market structure, performance, and efficiency of the Chinese banking sector," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 45(4), pages 337-358, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:ecopln:v:45:y:2012:i:4:p:337-358
    DOI: 10.1007/s10644-012-9123-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10644-012-9123-6
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10644-012-9123-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Berger, Allen N, 1995. "The Profit-Structure Relationship in Banking--Tests of Market-Power and Efficient-Structure Hypotheses," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(2), pages 404-431, May.
    2. Shrimal Perera & Michael Skully & J. Wickramanayake, 2006. "Competition and structure of South Asian banking: a revenue behaviour approach," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(11), pages 789-801.
    3. Berger, Allen N & Hannan, Timothy H, 1989. "The Price-Concentration Relationship in Banking," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 71(2), pages 291-299, May.
    4. Berger, Allen N. & Hasan, Iftekhar & Zhou, Mingming, 2010. "The effects of focus versus diversification on bank performance: Evidence from Chinese banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1417-1435, July.
    5. García-Herrero, Alicia & Gavilá, Sergio & Santabárbara, Daniel, 2009. "What explains the low profitability of Chinese banks?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 2080-2092, November.
    6. Jiang, Chunxia & Yao, Shujie & Zhang, Zongyi, 2009. "The effects of governance changes on bank efficiency in China: A stochastic distance function approach," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 717-731, December.
    7. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    8. Sophia Davidova & Laure Latruffe, 2007. "Relationships between Technical Efficiency and Financial Management for Czech Republic Farms," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 269-288, June.
    9. Park, Kang H. & Weber, William L., 2006. "Profitability of Korean banks: Test of market structure versus efficient structure," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 222-239.
    10. Berger, Allen N. & Hasan, Iftekhar & Zhou, Mingming, 2009. "Bank ownership and efficiency in China: What will happen in the world's largest nation?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 113-130, January.
    11. Smirlock, Michael, 1985. "Evidence on the (Non) Relationship between Concentration and Profitability in Banking," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 17(1), pages 69-83, February.
    12. repec:zbw:bofitp:2010_004 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Ferri, Giovanni, 2009. "Are New Tigers supplanting Old Mammoths in China's banking system? Evidence from a sample of city commercial banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 131-140, January.
    14. Ariff, Mohamed & Can, Luc, 2008. "Cost and profit efficiency of Chinese banks: A non-parametric analysis," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 260-273, June.
    15. Shih, Victor & Zhang, Qi & Liu, Mingxing, 2007. "Comparing the performance of Chinese banks: A principal component approach," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 15-34.
    16. Chen, Xiaogang & Skully, Michael & Brown, Kym, 2005. "Banking efficiency in China: Application of DEA to pre- and post-deregulation eras: 1993-2000," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 229-245.
    17. Jia, Chunxin, 2009. "The effect of ownership on the prudential behavior of banks - The case of China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 77-87, January.
    18. Subal Kumbhakar & Dan Wang, 2007. "Economic reforms, efficiency and productivity in Chinese banking," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 105-129, October.
    19. Csaba Móré & Márton Nagy, 2003. "Relationship between Market Structure and Bank Performance: Empirical Evidence for Central and Eastern Europe," MNB Working Papers 2003/12, Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary).
    20. Demsetz, Harold, 1973. "Industry Structure, Market Rivalry, and Public Policy," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 1-9, April.
    21. Heggestad, Arnold A, 1984. "Bank Market Structure and Competition: A Survey: Comment," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 16(4), pages 645-650, November.
    22. Yan Lu & Hung-Gay Fung & Xianfeng Jiang, 2007. "Market Structure and Profitability of Chinese Commercial Banks," Chinese Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(5), pages 100-113, September.
    23. Gilbert, R Alton, 1984. "Bank Market Structure and Competition: A Survey," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 16(4), pages 617-644, November.
    24. Fu, Xiaoqing (Maggie) & Heffernan, Shelagh, 2009. "The effects of reform on China's bank structure and performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 39-52, January.
    25. Randall Pozdena, 1986. "Structure and performance: some evidence from California banking," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Win, pages 5-17.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nathaniel Blankson & Godfred Amewu & Kenneth Ofori-Boateng & Kwame Adanu, 2022. "Banking reforms, efficiency and competition: new empirical evidence from a panel vector autoregressive analysis of Ghanaian banks," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 2(5), pages 1-24, May.
    2. Abayomi Oredegbe, 2020. "Canadian Banking Industry Profitability: Exploring the Relevance of Two Competing Hypotheses," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 12(4), pages 1-67, April.
    3. Açıkalın, Süleyman & Sakınç, İlker, 2015. "Assessing Competition with the Panzar-Rosse Model in the Turkish Banking Sector," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 2(1), pages 18-28.
    4. Martin Bod’a, 2017. "Stochastic sensitivity analysis of concentration measures," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 25(2), pages 441-471, June.
    5. Najahi, Akbar & Mousavi Jahromi, Yeghaneh & Khodadadkashi, Farhad & Haji, Golam Ali, 2016. "Relationship between Structure and Performance in the Banking Industry of Iran," Journal of Money and Economy, Monetary and Banking Research Institute, Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran, vol. 11(4), pages 443-466, October.
    6. Abdul Latif Alhassan & Michael Lawer Tetteh & Freeman Owusu Brobbey, 2016. "Market power, efficiency and bank profitability: evidence from Ghana," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 71-93, February.
    7. Philipp Steinbrunner, 2023. "I want a quiet life! On productivity and competition in the Central European energy sector," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(2), pages 403-428, April.
    8. Otero, Luis & Razia, Alaa & Cunill, Onofre Martorell & Mulet-Forteza, Carles, 2020. "What determines efficiency in MENA banks?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 331-341.
    9. Sin-Yu Ho & Bernard Njindan Iyke, 2018. "Finance-growth-poverty nexus: a re-assessment of the trickle-down hypothesis in China," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 221-247, August.
    10. Kannyiri Banyen & Nicholas Biekpe, 2020. "Financial integration, competition and bank efficiency: evidence from Africa’s sub-regional markets," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 53(4), pages 495-518, November.
    11. Bashar Abu Khalaf & Hadeel Yaseen & Ghassan Omet, 2015. "The Evolution of Bank Competition: Have Conditions Changed in the Jordanian Banking Sector?," International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, vol. 5(3), pages 100-107, July.
    12. Usman Bashir & Shoaib Khan & Abdulhafiz Jones & Muntazir Hussain, 2021. "Do banking system transparency and market structure affect financial stability of Chinese banks?," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 54(1), pages 1-41, February.
    13. González, Luis Otero & Razia, Alaa & Búa, Milagros Vivel & Sestayo, Rubén Lado, 2019. "Market structure, performance, and efficiency: Evidence from the MENA banking sector," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 84-101.
    14. Hongxing Yao & Muhammad Haris & Gulzara Tariq, 2018. "Profitability Determinants of Financial Institutions: Evidence from Banks in Pakistan," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-28, May.
    15. Ikram Ullah Khan & Sadaqat Ali & Habib Nawaz Khan, 2018. "Market Concentration, Risk-taking, and Efficiency of Commercial Banks in Pakistan: An Application of the Two-Stage Double Bootstrap DEA," Business & Economic Review, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, Pakistan, vol. 10(2), pages 65-96, June.
    16. Martin Boďa & Emília Zimková, 2017. "Malmquist index analysis of the recent development of the Slovak banking sector from two different angles," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 95-131, May.
    17. Philipp Steinbrunner, 2024. "Are governments bad entrepreneurs? On productivity and public ownership in Central European post‐Communist countries," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(1), pages 33-66, March.
    18. Bashar Abu Khalaf & Hadeel Yaseen & Ghassan Omet, 2015. "The Evolution of Bank Competition: Have Conditions Changed in the Jordanian Banking Sector?," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 5(8), pages 286-296, August.
    19. Ndlovu, Thabang, 2022. "Market Structure, Efficiency and Performance: Empirical evidence from South Africa’s Healthcare Insurer Market," MPRA Paper 115505, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Chan, Sok-Gee & Koh, Eric H.Y. & Zainir, Fauzi & Yong, Chen-Chen, 2015. "Market structure, institutional framework and bank efficiency in ASEAN 5," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 84-112.
    21. Aoife Hanley & Wan-Hsin Liu & Andrea Vaona, 2015. "Credit depth, government intervention and innovation in China: evidence from the provincial data," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 5(1), pages 73-98, June.
    22. Hou, Xiaohui & Wang, Qing & Zhang, Qi, 2014. "Market structure, risk taking, and the efficiency of Chinese commercial banks," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 75-88.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jun Du & Sourafel Girma, 2011. "Cost economies, efficiency and productivity growth in the Chinese banking industry: evidence from a quarterly panel dataset," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 199-226, August.
    2. Liangliang He & Lei Chen & Frank Hong Liu, 2017. "Banking reforms, performance and risk in China," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(40), pages 3995-4012, August.
    3. Bing Xu & Adrian Van Rixtel & Michiel Van Leuvensteijn, 2013. "Measuring bank competition in China: a comparison of new versus conventional approaches applied to loan markets," BIS Working Papers 422, Bank for International Settlements.
    4. Carlos Barros & Hidemichi Fujii & Shunsuke Managi, 2015. "How scale and ownership are related to financial performance? A productivity analysis of the Chinese banking sector," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 4(1), pages 1-14, December.
    5. Chen, Zhongfei & Matousek, Roman & Wanke, Peter, 2018. "Chinese bank efficiency during the global financial crisis: A combined approach using satisficing DEA and Support Vector Machines☆," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 71-86.
    6. Barros, Carlos P. & Chen, Zhongfei & Liang, Qi Bin & Peypoch, Nicolas, 2011. "Technical efficiency in the Chinese banking sector," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 2083-2089, September.
    7. Dong, Yizhe & Firth, Michael & Hou, Wenxuan & Yang, Weiwei, 2016. "Evaluating the performance of Chinese commercial banks: A comparative analysis of different types of banks," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 252(1), pages 280-295.
    8. Sunil Mohanty & Hong-Jen Lin, 2021. "Efficiency in China’s Banking Sector: A Comparative Analysis of Pre- and Post-Basel II Eras," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 24(02), pages 1-29, June.
    9. Fredrik N. G. Andersson & Katarzyna Burzynska & Sonja Opper, 2016. "Lending for growth? A Granger causality analysis of China’s finance–growth nexus," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 897-920, November.
    10. Dong Xiang & Parmendra Sharma & Yuming Zhang, 2019. "The Global Financial Crisis, Fiscal Stimulus Package and the Chinese Banking Sector — A Pre- and Post-Efficiency Analysis," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(02), pages 1-43, June.
    11. García-Herrero, Alicia & Gavilá, Sergio & Santabárbara, Daniel, 2009. "What explains the low profitability of Chinese banks?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 2080-2092, November.
    12. Chen, Xiang & Wang, Yujia & Wu, Xin, 2022. "Exploring the source of the financial performance in Chinese banks: A risk-adjusted decomposition approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    13. Huang, Tai-Hsin & Lin, Chung-I & Chen, Kuan-Chen, 2017. "Evaluating efficiencies of Chinese commercial banks in the context of stochastic multistage technologies," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 93-110.
    14. Liang, Qi & Xu, Pisun & Jiraporn, Pornsit, 2013. "Board characteristics and Chinese bank performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 2953-2968.
    15. Andersson, Fredrik N. G. & Burzynska, Katarzyna & Opper, Sonja, 2013. "Lending for Growth? An Analysis of State-Owned Banks in China," Working Papers 2013:19, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    16. Fang, Jianchun & Lau, Chi-Keung Marco & Lu, Zhou & Tan, Yong & Zhang, Hua, 2019. "Bank performance in China: A Perspective from Bank efficiency, risk-taking and market competition," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 290-309.
    17. Mei-Ying Huang & Tsu-Tan Fu, 2013. "An examination of the cost efficiency of banks in Taiwan and China using the metafrontier cost function," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 387-406, December.
    18. Qian Wang & Xiaochu Feng, 2014. "Does Property Rights Reform Improve the Efficiency of China's State-owned Banks?," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 22(4), pages 1-20, July.
    19. Dong, Yizhe & Girardone, Claudia & Kuo, Jing-Ming, 2017. "Governance, efficiency and risk taking in Chinese banking," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 211-229.
    20. Yong Tan, 2018. "The Impacts of Competition and Risk on Profitability in Chinese Banking: Evidence from Boone Indicator and Stability Inefficiency," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 19(2), pages 523-554, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:ecopln:v:45:y:2012:i:4:p:337-358. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.