银行扩张与风险承担水平——基于银行发起设立村镇银行视角

Bank Expansion and Risk-taking--Evidence from Rural Banks Initiated by Commercial Banks

本文通过整合商业银行的年度财务报告和爱企查平台公布的银行投资村镇银行的信息,手工匹配并整理出2011~2021年国内商业银行发起设立村镇银行的数量等微观信息,结合商业银行的年度财务面板数据,探究商业银行发起设立村镇银行对其自身风险承担水平的影响、作用机制和异质性。研究发现:(1)商业银行发起设立村镇银行显著提升了其自身的风险承担水平;(2)发起行会通过代理成本和业务多元化水平影响其自身的风险承担水平,代理成本和业务多元化水平越高,商业银行发起设立村镇银行影响其自身风险承担水平的驱动效应越明显;(3)对于具有绝对控股权的、资产规模较大的商业银行、城商行以及位于东部地区的商业银行而言,其发起设立村镇银行对其自身的风险承担水平具有更明显的驱动效应。本文从发起设立村镇银行的新视角拓展了商业银行风险承担水平研究,为进一步完善国内商业银行的风险监管提供了理论参考。

This paper investigates the impact of commercial banks initiating rural banks on their risk-taking level and underlying mechanism,using annual financial reports of commercial banks and information on rural banks sponsored by corresponding commercial banks.We manually match and sort out the number of rural banks initiated by Chinese commercial banks from 2011 to 2021 and combine it with yearly financial panel data of commercial banks.Our econometric analyses show that the initiation of rural banks by commercial banks has significantly increased their risk-taking level.We conduct a series of robustness tests,which confirm the result.Heterogeneity analyses reveal that commercial banks with larger asset scale,narrower network distribution,absolute holding position,or those located in the central or western regions in China are more affected by the initiation of rural banks.We also show that agency cost significantly enhances the motivating effect of the initiation of rural banks on the risk-taking level of the initiators.This result is robust with alternative indicators of agency cost.Our paper provides direct evidence of the impact of bank expansion on risk-taking level,and discusses the heterogeneous features based on cross-section variations of the initiating banks.Furthermore,we thoroughly unveil the role of agency cost in the effect mentioned above.The paper provides new micro evidence for the relevant literature on the economic impact of China's rural financial supply,which may provide policy guidance for conducting rural financial reform and enhancing supervision on the Chinese financial system.