This book offers a detailed examination of the impact of competition on bank profitability by comparing three different ownership types of Chinese commercial banks (state-owned, joint-stock and city commercial banks), during the period from 2003 to 2013, while at the same time controlling comprehensive bank-specific, industry-specific and macroeconomic variables. It not only investigates the impact of competition on profitability in the Chinese banking industry, more importantly, it outlines the relevant theories of bank profitability and bank competition and also offers a systematic review of Chinese banking industry reform and structure. This is the first book to comprehensively and accurately examine the competitive conditions within the Chinese banking industry, using different competition indicators including the banking sector concentration ratio, Panzar-Rosse H statistics, the Lerner index as well as the Boone indicator. With regard to competitiveness in the Chinese banking industry, all the research is focused on the general competition within the whole banking industry, while the use of the Boone indicator in this book facilitates analysis of the competitive conditions in different banking markets in China, such as the loan market, deposit market as well as the non-interest income market. This not only fills a gap in the empirical literature but also provides markers for the Chinese government and banking regulatory authorities to follow in order to formulate and implement relevant monetary policies, so as to improve bank performance and ultimately profitabilty.


Dr Aaron Tan is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Business School at the University of Huddersfield, UK.