【英语中国】中国银行业隐藏巨大道德风险成本

Some policy makers in Beijing have taken to crowing that China's economic model is superior to the West's because China didn't suffer a banking crisis. They're wrong in at least one critical respect: moral hazard. In China, just as in the West, banks and businesses have grown accustomed to gambling with other people's money on the assumption that the government will bail them out if they lose. If Beijing doesn't address this problem soon, it could face its own serious financial problems.

The key fact governing most credit and investment decisions today is that everyone believes the central bank would bail out any financial institution, large or small. Even in cases of 'irregular fund raising,' where local officials illegally leeched household deposits out of banks via illegal investment vehicles, the central government has consistently repaid depositors in the event of bank closures. The promise is different from, and worse than, traditional deposit insurance in that banks don't pay a premium for the benefit -- it just happens.

This causes ripples throughout the financial system. Depositors and investors are at ease with placing much of their savings into financial institutions because of the central bank's blanket guarantee, allowing these institutions to provide ample liquidity to firms. The guarantee also minimizes the chance of a panic, thus enforcing everyone's confidence in the system.

Two other regulations help bolster a deceptive sense of security. First, the China Banking Regulatory Commission imposes a large basket of prudential targets on all banks, including capital-adequacy ratio, debt-asset ratio and nonperforming-loan ratio requirements, as well as a long list of lending rules. Furthermore, the Communist Party sends inspectors to monitor the banking regulators. In theory, this system should guard against the build-up of excessive risks, despite endless moral hazard.

But the guarantee and intrusive regulation make the system less secure, not more. Most obviously, given the ultimate backstop, profits from risky behavior are potentially so high banks are willing to share some of the spoils with corrupt regulators who can help them circumvent bothersome rules. In one recent case, the vice president of the China Development Bank was convicted of receiving bribes to grant loans against regulations. In another case, a banker in southern Guangdong province bribed local police to arrest an auditor evaluating the bank branch's books.

This kind of behavior would be difficult in a system with a freer media and an independent judiciary. But China's system depends mainly on top-down monitoring, where a borrower need only elicit the help of a powerful official. As an added benefit, if the loan fails, borrowers can work with banks to roll over loans with the regulators' full blessing.

As a consequence, financial-system risks build up over time at an unknown pace. Small crises are not allowed to emerge to inform the public of accumulating systemic risks -- unlike in the United States, where a growing number of small bank failures can serve as a canary in a coal mine. As the underlying risk grows unchecked, the chance that an unexpected shock will erode people's confidence in the central bank itself rises.

The only way to avert a future crisis of confidence is to tackle moral hazard. First, the central bank's blanket guarantee should be removed from small financial institutions that engage in reckless lending. Depositors must learn to be suspicious of banks doing the bidding of ambitious local authorities.

Second, while it may be difficult to take similar steps for large banks because of systemic risks, regulators could allow minority shareholders to shoulder some of the burden of monitoring the behavior of listed banks. These institutions should be required to disclose when large-scale borrowers restructure or roll over major loans. Instead of only reporting the identities of the largest borrowers overall, listed banks should disclose the identities of their largest borrowers in every province or even city so that investors can conduct their own due diligence.

Third, regulators also need to rethink the incentives their rules create. The current system of imposing target caps on nonperforming loans encourages bankers and local regulators to collude to hide NPLs. These targets should be scrapped in favor of higher capital-adequacy ratios and much stricter restrictions on borrowers' ability to roll over loans or to convert short-term loans into long-term loans. If losses arise, banks should be encouraged to simply recognize them and move on, perhaps by giving them the autonomy to auction off their NPLs directly to investors without state intervention.

China's moral hazard problem manifests itself somewhat differently from that in the West, but the end result is the same: If all financial institutions are perceived as 'too big to fail,' while misguided regulations give a false impression of safety, plenty of bankers and investors will be happy to take advantage.

Victor Shih

中国某些政策制订者夸耀中国的经济运作模式优于西方，因为中国未遭受银行业危机。他们的这种观点至少在一个关键方面是错的，这就是道德风险。在中国如同西方国家一样，银行与企业已习惯于拿别人的钱做赌注，认为失败了政府会出面拯救他们。中国政府如果不立即解决这一问题，就可能面临自身的严重金融问题。

现如今，支配大多数信贷与投资决策的关键事实是，人人都认为中国央行会拯救大大小小的所有金融机构。即便出现不正当募资的情况，如地方官员通过非法投资手段违规榨取银行内的家庭储蓄，如果银行倒闭，中央政府仍会一如既往地替银行还债。这种承诺与银行不支付受益溢价的传统储蓄保险不一样，并比之更为糟糕。而情况正是如此。

这会引发金融体系的涟漪效应。因中国央行进行全面担保，储蓄方与投资者对将大部分储蓄存入金融机构感到放心，使得这些机构可向企业提供充足流动性。央行的这种担保也将发生恐慌的机率降至最低，从而增强了该体系中所有各方的信心。

其它两个监管措施对安全性方面的假象构成支撑。首先，中国银监会对所有银行实施一系列审慎监管指标，包括资本充足率、资产负债比以及不良贷款比率限制等，还有一系列的放贷规则。此外，各个级别的银监会也受中国共产党的监督和领导。从理论上说，这种体系应可防范过度风险的累积，尽管有无尽的道德风险。

不过这种保证与干预性监管使这种体制安全性减弱，而非增强。最明显的是，考虑到央行的最终担保，而风险行为带来的盈利可能极高，银行愿意与帮助其规避烦人规则的腐败的监管者共享战利品。最近一起案例中，中国国家开发银行(China Development Bank)副行长被判接受贿赂违规批准放贷。另一起案件中，广东省一个银行家向当地警察行贿以让警方逮捕一名评估该行分支机构帐目的审计员。

在一个媒体更自由而司法权更为独立的体系中，发生这类行为会较为困难。但中国的银行体制主要依赖自上而下的监管，借款人需要的仅是取得一位掌权官员的帮助。此外还有一项好处，如果贷款未能按时返还，借款人可与银行家一起，在监管者的完全同意之下，将贷款展期。

结果是，长期以往金融体系风险以一种未知的速度累积，而不允许出现小型危机来让公众知道系统性风险在增加。这一点与美国不同，在美国，小型银行破产数量不断上升可视为系统的一种警示信号。随着潜在风险未加抑制地增长，出现意外打击会毁掉人们对央行信心的可能性增加。

防止未来出现信心危机的唯一途径是解决道德风险。首先，央行应取消对不计后果进行借贷的小型金融机构的全面担保。存款人必须学会对依野心勃勃的地方当局旨意办事的银行进行质疑。

其次，尽管出于系统性风险的考虑，对大型银行难以采取类似的措施，监管者可以让少数股东承担起监督上市银行行为的部分责任。这些银行应按要求披露大规模借款者就主要贷款进行的调整或展期事宜。除了整体性披露规模最大的借款人的身份外，上市银行还应分省或市来披露规模最大的借款人的身份，以便投资者能自行开展尽职调查。

第三，监管者还需要重新考虑其规则产生的激励因素。当前金融体系对不良贷款设定的上限鼓励银行家及地方监管者共同对不良贷款进行瞒报。这类限制应废弃，同时应提高资本充足率，并对借款人贷款展期或将短期贷款转为长期贷款的资格进行更为严格的限制。如果产生损失，可鼓励银行仅对损失进行确认并继续经营，比如可赋予他们直接向投资者拍卖不良贷款的自主权，而无需政府干涉。

中国自身显露出的的道德风险问题与西方的有点不一样，但结果是相同的。如果所有的金融机构都被视为大到不能倒，而因监管条例失当产生一种安全假象，则大量的银行家及投资者会乐于占这个便宜。

（编者按：本文作者史宗瀚(Victor Shih)是美国西北大学政治学副教授，他撰写了Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation一书（剑桥大学出版社，2008）。）