恐慌期中国における信用構造の再編 : 1930年代華北における棉花流通・金融を中心に

抄録

This article examines the reorganization of the Chinese financial system during the period of the Great Depression, focusing on the shift in commercial finance through an analysis of finance and the cotton trade in north China in the 1930s. The main findings are as follows : (1) The cotton trade in north China mainly depended on factor merchants as well as native banks. The factor merchants provided local cotton merchants with shipping and inventory finance with funds borrowed from financial institutions. (2) The cotton trade throughout north China was stagnant during this period, because shipping finance was paralyzed by the weakening of the financial function of the factor merchants, and the contraction in credit caused by bankruptcies among native banks and the outflow of silver from rural areas. (3) In this situation, modern banking developed as a substitute for the financial function of both the factor merchants and the native banks through the expansion of documentary exchange credit and secured loans. (4) This change in the credit structure was backed by an increasing tendency toward integration in the domestic market in response to the development of cotton spinning and other industries, and was supported by fact that the improvement of railroad networks allowed the cotton-growing regions to become directly connected with Shanghai.