1.

introduction
Politicians’ promotion incentives and bank risk exposure in China (JBF 2019 )
 Li Wang, Lukas Menkhoff, Michael Schröder and Xian Xu.
 main idea ： politicians’ pressure to climb the career ladder increases bank risk exposure in their region.
 data: Based on 147 Chinese banks data for the period 2005 to 2012.
 methodologies : lagged explanatory variables + IV approach.

Previous similar literature

 ”political view” of government involvement in the banking system, which emphasizes the inefficient
outcomes resulting from politicians’ deliberate policy of maximizing their own personal objectives
(Krueger, 1974; Shleifer and Vishny, 1994)
 political promotion system in China is fully centralized (Jin et al., 2005)
 some researchers mainly considers the economic growth realized by local politicians relative to others
(Li and Zhou, 2005; Xu, 2011).

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 1. introduction-- Comparisons

Comparisons
This paper Previous similar literature
focus on bank risk overall bank performance (La Porta et al., 2002; Qian et al., 2011); general
bank lending behavior (Sapienza, 2004; Becker, 2007), government
(bailout) guarantees (Gropp et al., 2014)
election Chinese style risk- federal states (Sapienza, 2004; Dinc, 2005; Micco et al., 2007; Carvalho,
system channeling mechanism 2014; Englmaier and Stowasser, 2017)
stressed subnational National impact
role government officials
highlights potential cost from positive role of Chinese politicians’ promotion incentives (Jin et al., 2005;
promotion policy Li and Zhou, 2005)

To get the logic, we should equip ourselves with:

political promotion system risk channeling mechanisms 7 hypotheses

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 2.1 literature review--political promotion system
Economic performance-based promotion system
 The central government, under the tight control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has the ultimate
authority to decide on the appointment and removal of all the lower-tier government officials (i.e. local
politicians) through a nested personnel-control network (Xu, 2011; Persson and Zhuravskaya, 2016)
 an economic performance-based promotion system (Qiao et al., 2008; Wang, 2013).
 Relative performance evaluations (Maskin et al., 2000) (Xu, 2011).

This promotion system

Advantages Problems
Promote local economic growth Fierce competition in public investment and financial resource
(Jin et al., 2005) grabbing of local governments: GDP growth, building of infrastructure
and foreign investment attraction.
Reducing inequality between
Leading to “image projects”, “achievement projects” and “redundant
regions
projects”.
(Zhou, 2005)
Burden for local government(Sichuan Province) and for Financing
platforms (Industrial Bank and Minsheng Bank: > 20% & Huishang
Bank: 53.2%). Table 1

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Hypothesis 1.
Table 1 Debt Raising Units and Debt Sources of Local Government Debts by the End of 2012

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 2.3 Hypotheses

Hypothesis 1
 Promotion incentives of local politicians may affect bank risk, and an increase in promotion
incentives will lead to an increase in bank risk.

Hypothesis 2
 The effect of promotion incentives on bank risk is significant for city commercial banks, rural
commercial banks and rural cooperative financial institutions.

Hypothesis 3
 The effect of promotion incentives on bank risk is particularly strong after the release of stimulus
packages in 2008.

Hypothesis 4
 The effect of promotion pressure on bank risk is stronger for the regions where the CDB is less
involved.

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 2.3 Hypotheses

Hypothesis 5
 The effect of promotion incentives on bank risk is stronger, if politicians are chairing a board of
the bank vs. being an ordinary member

Hypothesis 6
 The effect of promotion incentives on bank risk is stronger, if politicians are chairing the board of
directors vs. the board of supervisors.

Hypothesis 7
 The effect of promotion incentives on bank risk is stronger, if politicians are still active in politics
vs. being former politicians.

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 2.2 literature review--risk channeling mechanisms
Three mechanisms how political promotion incentives may affect bank risk :
 a higher credit and default risk due to the longer loan term and lower bank
liquidity （ Campbell and Taksler, 2003 ）
Why ？ a fairly long time &low-yield projects
• 1,734 platforms (i.e. 26.4%) were loss;
• Some city commercial banks are even regarded as the “second finance level” of local governments
(Qian et al., 2011). Hypothesis
2.
• platforms of prefecture-level and county-level account for 70% of the total number of platforms.
 Second, platforms experience “land finance” (Tudi caizheng), bad asset quality, and imperfect
guarantee mechanisms, especially after 2008.
• land sales account for > 1/2 promised debt repayment in 2010 Hypothesis 3
• alternative —China Development Bank( 国家开发银行 ) Hypothesis 4.
 Third, due to a shorter average tenure of local politicians caused by promotion competition
and career mobility strengthens the tendency for local governments to over-issue debt and to
be more careless about investing and debt-financing (e.g., Persson and Svensson, 1989).
• Board vs ordinary member Hypotheses 5-7.
• Members of the board vs Supervisory Board 第 7 页
• incumbent leader vs predecessor
Appendix—table A1
 3.1 Data--unbalanced panel of 147 Chinese banks for the period 2005-2012.

Data source Data characteristics

 bank accounting data: annual bank  have observations for at least 4 years
reports  cover nearly 80% of the total of Chinese
 data on the macro-economy: all from banks
the “China City Statistical Yearbook”  4 types

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