Economic Policy Uncertainty, Bank Risk-taking and Firm Investment

Abstract

It is a consensus that economic policy uncertainty will inhibit economic development, but there is little discussion on how to mitigate this negative impact. Bank risk-taking can maintain the security of the financial system. Under the special institutional background, the risk-taking of China’s banks may be reflected not only on the business of the in-balance sheet by adjusting the willingness of taking risks and the scale of loan, but also on the business of the off-balance sheet by adjusting the scale of shadow banks.　　Based on this, employing the quarterly data of listed companies from 2012 to 2018, this paper investi- gates how economic policy uncertainty affects bank risk-taking, and how the effect transmits to firm investment. The empirical results indicate that, from the perspective of in-balance sheet business, economic policy uncertainty prompts banks to relax the approval standards of loan and increase the loan scale, thus encou- raging firms to expand investment. However, from the perspective of off-balance sheet business, economic policy uncertainty makes firms reduce investment by shrinking shadow banks’ scale. By redefining and calculating key variables, deleting macroeconomic variables and eliminating the influence of property right, the conclusions are still robust. Further research finds that, a series of shadow banking governance measures, adopted by the China Banking Regulatory Commission, are important reasons for banks to increase the scale of in-balance sheet business and reduce the scale of off-balance sheet business.　　The marginal contribution of this paper is as follows: Firstly, we put the loan approval conditions, bank loans and shadow banks into the analysis framework of bank risk-taking. Secondly, it not only analyzes how economic policy uncertainty affects bank risk-taking, but also examines the impact of the structural change of the in-balance sheet and off-balance sheet bank risk-taking on firm investment, which clearly shows the mecha- nism by which economic policy uncertainty affects firm investment through bank risk-taking. Thirdly, this paper discusses whether a series of shadow banking governance measures issued by the China Banking Regulatory Commission are the important reasons for banks to change their risk-taking through the adjustment of the in-balance sheet and off-balance sheet structure.