중국의 내생적 금융억압정책과 향후 금융자유화에 대한 시사점

This paper examines endogenous characteristics of financial repression policies and their implications on future financial liberalization in China. The critical components of Chinese financial repression policies are government ownership of banks. regulated interest rates. and selective credit policies. Although the financial repression policies originated from the heavy-industry-oriented development strategy of the pre-reform era, they continued even after market-based reform measures began to be introduced. This is due primarily to the fact that the state may still want to maintain heavy industries because of strategic considerations. The state may also not allow non-strategic state-owned enterprises to become bankrupt, because of not only concern about political consequences of unemployment that may accompany the bankruptcy but also policy burdens that the enterprises still carry. Beside these factors, the current imitation stage of Chinese technological progress can be an additional explanation for the persistent financial repression policies. The negative effects of the financial repression turns out to be soft budget constraints faced by state-owned enterprises(SOEs) and huge accumulation of non-performing loans of the state banking sector. The most important ingredients in the current economic reforms in China are, among other things, SOE reforms and financial liberalization. However, the endogenous characteristics of Chinese financial repression policies imply that future financial liberalization can be regarded as an endogenous adjustment process depending on economic growth, the elimination of political constraints, and the expansion of market-based infrastructure.