关键词: 银行业竞争, 对外直接投资, 经济转型

Abstract: The banking industry is a key element of China’s financial system and financial development. Since entry into the 21st century, China’ s banking dominated by state-owned banks has transformed the structure, with banking competition constantly increasing. There are two hypotheses about the economic effect of banking competition, namely “market power hypothesis” and “information hypothesis”. In this paper, we try to empirically test the above two hypotheses by using the matched microdata in the background of deregulation of China’s banking access and policies encouraging Chinese enterprises to go out to the international market. The paper has several findings. First of all, the “unbinding” of the banking industry helps enterprises to “go out” from domestic market to international market. Second, after correcting the sample bias with propensity score matching and potential endogenous problems with instrumental variables, the results remain unchanged. Third, the financing cost decrease caused by the “unbinding” of the banking industry is the major mechanism of the “unbinding” influencing the “ going out” of enterprises. The analysis results of enterprises’ “ going out” support the “market power hypothesis” for China. This paper provides important evidence on the relationship between banking reform and enterprise outward direct investment and verifies the “ market power hypothesis” and “information hypothesis” in the context of the “unbinding” of China’s banking industry. It will be helpful to better understand and evaluate the economic effect of China’s banking reform and significant to promote the “Belt and Road Initiative”.

Key words: Banking Competition, Outward Foreign Direct Investment, Economic Transformation