Target Setting and Allocative Inefficiency in Lending: Evidence from Two Chinese Banks
Speaker: Yongxiang Wang (University of Southern California)
Date: Dec 14, Friday, 2018
Time: 12 pm - 1 pm
Venue: Room 1200 at Pudong Campus
Abstract:
We study the consequences of month-end lending incentives for Chinese bank managers. Using data from two banks, one state-owned and the other partially privatized, we show a clear increase in lending in the final days of each month, a result of both more loan issuance and higher value per loan. We estimate that daily end-of-month lending is 95 percent higher in the last 5 days of each month as a result of loan targets, with only a small amount plausibly attributable to shifting loans forward from the following month. End-of-month loans are 2.1 percentage points (more than 16 percent) more likely to be classified as bad in the years following issuance; a back-of-the envelope calculation suggests that the incremental loans made in order to hit targets are 26 percent more likely to eventually turn bad. Our work highlights the distortionary effects of target setting on capital allocation, in a context in which such concerns have risen to particular prominence in recent years.
Speaker's Website
Link to the Paper
Speaker: Yongxiang Wang (University of Southern California)
Date: Dec 14, Friday, 2018
Time: 12 pm - 1 pm
Venue: Room 1200 at Pudong Campus
Abstract:
We study the consequences of month-end lending incentives for Chinese bank managers. Using data from two banks, one state-owned and the other partially privatized, we show a clear increase in lending in the final days of each month, a result of both more loan issuance and higher value per loan. We estimate that daily end-of-month lending is 95 percent higher in the last 5 days of each month as a result of loan targets, with only a small amount plausibly attributable to shifting loans forward from the following month. End-of-month loans are 2.1 percentage points (more than 16 percent) more likely to be classified as bad in the years following issuance; a back-of-the envelope calculation suggests that the incremental loans made in order to hit targets are 26 percent more likely to eventually turn bad. Our work highlights the distortionary effects of target setting on capital allocation, in a context in which such concerns have risen to particular prominence in recent years.
Speaker's Website
Link to the Paper