The Impact of Cross-Border Capital Flows on the Chinese Banking System

Abstract

With the accelerated opening of China’s capital account, China’s banking sector is exposed to the impacts of cross-border capital flows. This article explores the impact of cross-border capital flows on banks’ risk-taking in China. Employing bank-level data of 50 Chinese commercial banks from 2005 to 2018 and a sys-GMM (system generalized method of moments) estimation method, we show that cross-border capital flows are positively associated with the risk-taking of Chinese commercial banks. Moreover, banks that are larger, more capital adequate, and more profitable are more sensitive to the degree of capital account openness toward risk-taking, and the capital account openness has the greatest influence on the profitability-driven bank risk-taking. Nevertheless, such positive effects of capital account openness on bank risk-taking may be weakened under bad macro-environment, indicated by low economic growth, poor legitimate law enforcement, and unstable political condition.