Reasons for the Inefficiency Of the Chinese State Owned Banks

摘 要：國有四大銀行巨額盈利的背后隱藏著經營的無效率和較高的風險。大額的呆壞賬就是其主要表現之一。而引起這些問題的原因主要是政府的干預和市場的脫節。政府的干預為銀行提供了潛在的擔保，從而引起了道德風險，并將風險擴散至整個金融市場，地方政府融資平臺的參與也加大了銀行的系統風險。

關鍵詞：政府干預、國家所有權，信用風險

中圖分類號：F832 文獻標識碼：A 文章編號：1006-026X（2012）11-0000-01

Previous Study

The inefficiency of Chinese state owned banks has been a hot topic for a long time.But what is the main reason of which drives the problems，there is no consensus among the previous studies.

Yi Gang （2001） thinks that the main reason for the problems of inefficiency lies in the state ownership，which causes the inefficient management and huge bad assets.

Nevertheless，Altubas proves that the efficiency of state ownership does not necessarily lead to inefficiency based on the study of German banking system.British economics Martin Parker also find that the private ownership is not the necessary methods to assure efficiency.In the highly competitive market，the private ownership shows the improvement of efficiency，but on the less competitive market，especially monopolized market，privatization do not have significant effects.①

Government ownership and intervention

After the introduction of stock system，the ownership of four state owned banks have not changed significantly.The state still have the absolute control over those banks.By the end of 2010，the shares hold by state of each banks were as follows： Agriculture Bank of China accounted for 79.24%；Industrial and Commercial Bank of China accounts for 70.7%；Construction Bank of China accounts for 67.55；Bank of China accounts for 67.55%.②

1.Government intervention

The state ownership of banks is not like shareholders of a normal public company，whose real shareholders can execute their authority to supervise the operation of the company.The real owner of the state owned banks is the state，which is represented by the government.Unlike normal institutions，the government seeks more than financial profit.Instead，the government would purse some benefits for the society and the whole economy，for example，keeping social stability，lowering unemployment rate，keeping the growth of economy and so on.

By this means，the banks as Economic individuals now have several goals，which are hard to achieve at the same time.Some of the goals even contradict to each other.Some of the political measures which are asked by the government to fulfill are profitless.Consequently，loss occurred due to those transactions.The multi-goal system and government subsidies distract the management teams from focusing on improving efficiency and maximizing shareholders profits.As it shows，the efficiency of state owned banks is weakened.It was predicted by the chairman of central bank in 2004，that 80% of the dad loans were directly or indirectly related to the government intervention.③

To solve the problems，the government have taken over the bad assets from the state owned banks and set up Asset Management Companies to manage those bad assets.Apart from that，it directly injected capital to the banks to ensure the cash flow and fulfill the capital requirements.

2.Management defaults

Further more，due to the Information asymmetry，the government can not differentiate exactly whether the loss were caused by political reasons or caused by the inefficient management.This lack of supervision and government subsidies gives the management teams the chances to focus on their own interest.The management teams would like to classify the loss caused by management as the loss caused by political intervention.The outcome is that，the government must provide more subsidies to deal with those losses.

Whenever there are bad assets，the government would provide subsidies.Especially when the banks are under crisis，the government would try every thing to rescue the state owned banks.In this case，the management teams keep taking more risks，because they know the government will take over all the troubles，which is called gambling for resurrection （Mitchell，1997）.the potential government guarantee makes moral hazard become more serious and the state owned banks are under greater credit risk and inefficiency.④

3.Local government intervention

Local governments take their own advantages on the local branches of state owned banks and push the credit risk of the banks into higher standard.

In the name of providing social services and improving local economy，the local government set up companies called the local government investment and financing platform （LGIFP）.LGIFP has close relations with state owned banks，which is the main credit provider of LGIFP.The local branches of state owned banks usually provide LGIFP with long term loans in huge amount.The loans are guaranteed directly or indirectly by the government.In 2009，there were more than 8221 LGIFP in the whole country.The loans made to LGIFP till the end of 2009 were as high as 20.4% of the out standing loans of the whole banking system.⑤

Most of the investments made by LGIFP are related to real estate market which has big bubbles.The guarantees local government made for the loans is based mainly on the lands and Real estate it owns.When the bubble of real estate market bursts，the huge loans state owned banks made to LGIFP will suffer from default.The guarantees local government made become useless.In that situation，both the banks and the local government will under very big financial troubles.The systemic risk shows up.

Conclusion

The credit risks and systemic risk lead to very serious problems.Chinese state owned banks and government should be really cautious not to step on the same road as America did.The government intervention，which provide government potential guarantee，lead to the problems of the Chinese state owned banks.Reducing government intervention and rebuilding free market could push the stated owned banks back to market competition.

注解

① 產權激勵、市場競爭與超產權論——我國國有銀行改革的演進邏輯和展望分析，J，周孟亮，EastChinaEconomicManagement，Jul1，2008

② 后上市時代中國國有銀行的產權改革，J，于曉東，劉越飛，調研世界，2011年第11期

③ 政治控制、財政分權與國有銀行信貸風險，J，楊潔，金融財稅，2010年第8期

④ 政治控制、財政補貼與道德風險：國有銀行不良資產的理論模型，J，俞喬，趙昌文，經濟研究，2009年第6期

⑤ 政治控制、財政分權與國有銀行信貸風險，J，楊潔，金融財稅，2010年第8期

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