IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/rfinst/v23y2010i8p3048-3097.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Formal versus Informal Finance: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Meghana Ayyagari
  • Asli Demirgüç-Kunt
  • Vojislav Maksimovic

Abstract

The fast growth of Chinese private sector firms is taken as evidence that informal finance can facilitate firm growth better than formal banks in developing countries. We examine firm financing patterns and growth using a database of twenty-four hundred Chinese firms. While a relatively small percentage of firms utilize bank loans, bank financing is associated with faster growth whereas informal financing is not. Controlling for selection, we find that firms with bank financing grow faster than similar firms without bank financing and that our results are not driven by bank corruption or the selection of firms that have accessed the formal financial system. Our findings question whether reputation and relationship-based financing are responsible for the performance of the fastest-growing firms in developing countries. The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org., Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Meghana Ayyagari & Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Vojislav Maksimovic, 2010. "Formal versus Informal Finance: Evidence from China," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(8), pages 3048-3097, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:23:y:2010:i:8:p:3048-3097
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rfs/hhq030
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wei, Shang-Jin & Boyreau-Debray, Genevieve, 2004. "Pitfalls of a State-Dominated Financial System: The Case of China," CEPR Discussion Papers 4471, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirguc‐Kunt & Luc Laeven & Ross Levine, 2008. "Finance, Firm Size, and Growth," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(7), pages 1379-1405, October.
    3. Wurgler, Jeffrey, 2000. "Financial markets and the allocation of capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 187-214.
    4. Art Durnev & Kan Li & Randall Mørck & Bernard Yeung, 2004. "Capital markets and capital allocation: Implications for economies in transition," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 12(4), pages 593-634, December.
    5. Hoff, Karla & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1998. "Moneylenders and bankers: price-increasing subsidies in a monopolistically competitive market," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 485-518, April.
    6. Lerner, Joshua, 1998. ""Angel" financing and public policy: An overview," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(6-8), pages 773-783, August.
    7. Robert G. King & Ross Levine, 1993. "Finance and Growth: Schumpeter Might Be Right," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 717-737.
    8. Jain, Sanjay, 1999. "Symbiosis vs. crowding-out: the interaction of formal and informal credit markets in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 419-444, August.
    9. Bekaert, Geert & Harvey, Campbell R. & Lundblad, Christian, 2001. "Emerging equity markets and economic development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 465-504, December.
    10. Rousseau, Peter L. & Sylla, Richard, 2005. "Emerging financial markets and early US growth," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 1-26, January.
    11. Rajan, Raghuram G & Zingales, Luigi, 1998. "Financial Dependence and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 559-586, June.
    12. Bekaert, Geert & Harvey, Campbell R. & Lundblad, Christian, 2005. "Does financial liberalization spur growth?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 3-55, July.
    13. Ross Levine & Norman Loayza & Thorsten Beck, 2002. "Financial Intermediation and Growth: Causality and Causes," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Leonardo Hernández & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Se (ed.),Banking, Financial Integration, and International Crises, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 2, pages 031-084, Central Bank of Chile.
    14. Besley, Timothy & Levenson, Alec R, 1996. "The Role of Informal Finance in Household Capital Accumulation: Evidence from Taiwan," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(434), pages 39-59, January.
    15. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2009. "Does Local Financial Development Matter?," Springer Books, in: Damiano Bruno Silipo (ed.), The Banks and the Italian Economy, chapter 0, pages 31-66, Springer.
    16. Shawn Cole, 2009. "Financial Development, Bank Ownership, and Growth: Or, Does Quantity Imply Quality?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(1), pages 33-51, February.
    17. Mark J. Garmaise, 2003. "Informal Financial Networks: Theory and Evidence," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(4), pages 1007-1040.
    18. Levine, Ross & Zervos, Sara, 1998. "Capital Control Liberalization and Stock Market Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(7), pages 1169-1183, July.
    19. Xiaoqiang Cheng & Hans Degryse, 2010. "The Impact of Bank and Non-Bank Financial Institutions on Local Economic Growth in China," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 37(2), pages 179-199, June.
    20. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2004. "The Role of Social Capital in Financial Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 526-556, June.
    21. Zingales, Luigi, 2002. "Does Local Financial Development Matter?," Working Papers 173, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    22. Arnott, Richard & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1991. "Moral Hazard and Nonmarket Institutions: Dysfunctional Crowding Out or Peer Monitoring?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 179-190, March.
    23. Armando Gomes, 2000. "Going Public without Governance: Managerial Reputation Effects," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 615-646, April.
    24. Christopoulos, Dimitris K. & Tsionas, Efthymios G., 2004. "Financial development and economic growth: evidence from panel unit root and cointegration tests," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 55-74, February.
    25. Xiaozu Wang & Lixin Colin Xu & Tian Zhu, 2004. "State‐owned enterprises going public The case of China," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 12(3), pages 467-487, September.
    26. Inessa Love, 2003. "Financial Development and Financing Constraints: International Evidence from the Structural Investment Model," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(3), pages 765-791, July.
    27. Cull, Robert & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2003. "Who gets credit? The behavior of bureaucrats and state banks in allocating credit to Chinese state-owned enterprises," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 533-559, August.
    28. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Maksimovic, Vojislav, 2002. "Financial and legal constraints to firm growth - Does size matter?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2784, The World Bank.
    29. Bose, Pinaki, 1998. "Formal-informal sector interaction in rural credit markets," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 265-280, August.
    30. James Heckman & Salvador Navarro-Lozano, 2004. "Using Matching, Instrumental Variables, and Control Functions to Estimate Economic Choice Models," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 30-57, February.
    31. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    32. Jonathan Anderson, 2006. "Five Persistent Myths about China's Banking System," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 26(2), pages 243-250, Spring/Su.
    33. Gilbert,Christopher L. & Vines,David (ed.), 2006. "The World Bank," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521029018.
    34. Bell, Clive & Srinivasan, T N & Udry, Christopher, 1997. "Rationing, Spillover, and Interlinking in Credit Markets: The Case of Rural Punjab," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 557-585, October.
    35. Adel Varghese, 2005. "Bank-moneylender linkage as an alternative to bank competition in rural credit markets," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 57(2), pages 315-335, April.
    36. Beck, Thorsten & Levine, Ross, 2002. "Industry growth and capital allocation:*1: does having a market- or bank-based system matter?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 147-180, May.
    37. Boyreau-Debray, Genevieve, 2003. "Financial intermediation and growth - Chinese style," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3027, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Demirguc-Kunt, Asli, 2006. "Finance and economic development : policy choices for developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3955, The World Bank.
    2. Levine, Ross, 2005. "Finance and Growth: Theory and Evidence," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 865-934, Elsevier.
    3. Zhang, Jin & Wang, Lanfang & Wang, Susheng, 2012. "Financial development and economic growth: Recent evidence from China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 393-412.
    4. Thorsten Beck, 2009. "The Econometrics of Finance and Growth," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Terence C. Mills & Kerry Patterson (ed.), Palgrave Handbook of Econometrics, chapter 25, pages 1180-1209, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Popov, Alexander, 2017. "Evidence on finance and economic growth," Working Paper Series 2115, European Central Bank.
    6. Anne C. Maduka & Kevin O. Onwuka, 2013. "Financial Market Structure and Economic Growth: Evidence from Nigeria Data," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 3(1), pages 75-98, January.
    7. Michiel Bijlsma & Andrei Dubovik, 2014. "Banks, Financial Markets and Growth in Developed Countries: a Survey of the empirical literature," CPB Discussion Paper 266, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    8. De la Torre, Augusto & Schmukler, Sergio, 2007. "Emerging Capital Markets and Globalization: The Latin American Experience," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 349, March.
    9. Benfratello, Luigi & Schiantarelli, Fabio & Sembenelli, Alessandro, 2008. "Banks and innovation: Microeconometric evidence on Italian firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 197-217, November.
    10. Beck, Thorsten, 2006. "Creating an efficient financial system : challenges in a global economy," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3856, The World Bank.
    11. Bekaert, Geert & Harvey, Campbell R. & Lundblad, Christian, 2005. "Does financial liberalization spur growth?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 3-55, July.
    12. Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Ross Levine, 2008. "Finance, Financial Sector Policies, and Long-Run Growth," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 28021, December.
    13. Trunin, Pavel (Трунин, Павел), 2015. "Analysis of the Level of Development of the Financial System in the Russian Federation [Анализ Уровня Развития Финансовой Системы В Российской Федерации]," Published Papers mn38, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    14. Michiel Bijlsma & Andrei Dubovik, 2014. "Banks, Financial Markets and Growth in Developed Countries: a Survey of the empirical literature," CPB Discussion Paper 266.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    15. Papaioannou, Elias, 2007. "Finance and growth: a macroeconomic assessment of the evidence from a European angle," Working Paper Series 787, European Central Bank.
    16. Augusto de la Torre & Sergio L. Schmukler, 2007. "Emerging Capital Markets and Globalization : The Latin American Experience," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 7187, September.
    17. James R. Brown & Gustav Martinsson & Bruce C. Petersen, 2013. "Law, Stock Markets, and Innovation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(4), pages 1517-1549, August.
    18. Koetter, Michael & Wedow, Michael, 2010. "Finance and growth in a bank-based economy: Is it quantity or quality that matters?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(8), pages 1529-1545, December.
    19. Madestam, Andreas, 2014. "Informal finance: A theory of moneylenders," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 157-174.
    20. Galindo, Arturo & Schiantarelli, Fabio & Weiss, Andrew, 2007. "Does financial liberalization improve the allocation of investment?: Micro-evidence from developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 562-587, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:oup:rfinst:v:23:y:2010:i:8:p:3048-3097. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfsssea.html .

    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.