The Rise of Chinas Shadow Banking System
Kinda Hachem
Chicago Booth and NBER
Zheng Michael Song
Chicago Booth
January 2015
Abstract
Shadow banking in China has grown very rapidly during the past decade. This
paper studies the causes and impending consequences. We begin by documenting important di¤erences in the cross-section of Chinese banks to isolate the regulatory triggers for shadow banking. We then build a model that rationalizes the facts and use it to conduct policy experiments. We
nd that asymmetric competition between banks is both a short-run stabilizer and a long-run risk, with new regulations potentially
exacerbating the tipping point.