为什么民间金融市场在中国重要?

Why the Informal Financial Market Plays an Important Role in China?

本文构建一个信息不对称的寡头垄断的融资模型来研究民间金融市场。研究表明,当投资者的监督强度较高时,均衡融资利率较低,融资额较大,企业家投资好项目;反之,均衡融资利率较高,融资额较小,企业家投资坏项目。在中国农村地区,因为投资者和企业家之间的相互了解程度较高,且企业家往往投资于生产技术相对落后的劳动密集型产品,所以投资者易于监督企业家。因此,民间金融市场均衡是低利率、高融资额、企业家投资好项目的均衡。这样,本文可以部分地解释Allenetal.(2005)的经验研究结果:在中国,虽然法律没有很好地保护投资者利益,但民间金融市场发达,支持着非正规部门的发展。本文的研究还表明,可能正是低效率的正规金融体制才导致高利率均衡的存在,从而易于诱发地方性的金融危机。因此,政府可以通过提高正规金融体制效率和建立中小民营银行来有效地遏制地方性金融危机。

We develop an asymmetric-information oligopolistic model to analyze the informal financial market. When outside investors＇ monitoring is quite easy, the equilibrium interest rate is low and the project is financed with high investment level, and vice versa. In China＇s rural area, where people have deep social interaction with each other and entrepreneurs invest mostly in the labor-intensive business with low technology, outside investors easily monitor entrepreneur, and good project is invested and the equilibrium informal financial market is characterized with low interest rate and high investment level. This paper can partially explain the argument highlighted in Allen et al. （2005） ： even though the legal system does not efficiently protect investors, the development of informal financial system supports the growth of the informal sector in China. This paper also argues that it is the inefficiency of the formal financial system that leads to the existence of equilibrium with high interest rate, which may induce local financial crises in rural China. To prevent local financial crises, the government can either improve the efficiency of formal financial system, or increase the external investment opportunity of capital held by external investors through policies supporting the development of small and medium banking system.