This study investigates the effects of the entry of foreign banks into the Chinese market. Existing studies focus on equity participations of foreign banks as a strategic investment in Chinese banks. However, studying different modes of entry is also indispensable to outline the functioning of the Chinese banking industry. Since April 2007, foreign banks have begun establishing subsidiaries to conduct renminbi business on a full scale. There was a fear that the entry of foreign banks in addition to the entry of the World Trade Organization in 2001 would adversely affect the Chinese banking industry. These effects include higher competition and a scramble for customers among new entrants. Foreign banks pose a threat to local banks because of their competitive advantages such as superior management and high-quality financial products and services. However, can we actually analyze the advantage of foreign banks over Chinese local banks? This paper aims to answer this question. First, we confirm the positions of foreign banks in the Chinese market on the basis of new reports and the financial data of these banks. This investigation shows that commitments toward China are different among foreign banks. Second, comparing the financial ratio of foreign and local banks demonstrates that foreign banks have no cost advantage and cannot expand their credit volume fully. Third, we use data envelopment analysis and calculate the efficiency of banks operating in China. The measured results do not reveal the advantages of foreign banks. This result is different from the ex-ante prediction. Although we have some reservations regarding this result, restrictions on approval by financial authorities oriented toward industrial protection might influence the competitiveness of foreign banks. Furthermore, foreign banks are not allowed to expand credit unlike local banks ever since the 2008 global financial crises. Thus, this situation also may affect the calculation of the efficiency of banks

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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors which increased the income inequality in rural China, using the existing public data and a micro data-set of rural household survey in Sichuan and Anhui province in 1999, conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics. The main results are as follows. Firstly, the increase in income inequality in rural Sichuan caused by the composition change in household size was statistically confirmed in the first half of the 2000’s. Therefore, the income inequality in rural inland has not risen more than current estimates for this period. Secondly, the income inequality in young person and aged hierarchy is comparatively large though a clear relation is not seen between the age of householder and the income gap according to the analysis on Anhui and Sichuan. Moreover, the income inequality between age hierarchies of householder is extremely small compared with the entire inequality. Therefore, it is thought that the change in the age structure doesn’t have a big influence on the personal income distribution in rural China. Especially, because the household share of aged hierarchy increases and the household share of young person hierarchy decreases, the change in age distribution hardly influences the change in the income inequality from middle of 1990’s to 2005.Thirdly, 30 percent of the Gini coefficient increase of net income from 1990 to 2005 is explained by the income structure change (the factors related to economic development). Moreover, 70 percent is explained by change of inequality of income sources (Pseudo-Gini coefficient). That is, the governmental policy of non-economic development element had a big influence on the income inequality in rural China. finally, the contribution rate of inequality change of the household business income has risen more than that of the income structure change for the inequality increase of net income. Moreover, the structural adjustment of agriculture production influences the inequality increase of household business income.

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This paper analyzes the reason of the explosive expansion of Chinese steel industry after 2001, with the focus on the period of two years before and after Lehman Shock. In the first place, it analyzed long term changes of crude steel production, and import and export of steel products, and pointed out that export usually decreased when import increased, but in case the whole economy was confronted with drastic changes of phases, directions of changes of import and export amounts could coincide. In the second place, it examined monthly changes of crude steel production level and trade level of steel products from January of 2008 to December of 2009, and made it clear that Chinese steel industry overcame the influence of Lehman Shock within few months and restore the velocity of the explosive expansion. In the third place, it analyzed the long term price changes of iron ore, coking coal, pig iron and several steel products, and pointed out that a phenomenon, which the author called “a smaller Great Leap Forward in Shanxi Province” occurred in the process of the transition from planned price system to market price system. And then, it examined the monthly changes of the prices of steel products of the same period, and pointed out the existence of the “rush-to-buy effect in price increasing phase” and “wait-and-see effect in price decreasing phase”. Based on these analyses, it examined the correlation of monthly changes among the prices, the production levels and the trade levels, and pointed out that the price which determined the production level of a steel product was not the price of the same month but the price of some months earlier. The author defined this price as “production-level-deciding price”, and pointed out the existence of “keep-to-buy effect” in the phase of crash of the price. At the end, it analyzed the long term changes of GDP and apparent consumption of steel products after 1978, and pointed out the coefficient of apparent consumption of steel products was as low as 0.59 in the years of 1997 and 98, but it started to rise very sharply from the year of 2001, and it exceeded 1.00 in 2004 and still keeping going up. It meant China entered high-steel-consumption era from 2004, and steel consuming industries have been kept shifting from whole world to China. In conclusion, it pointed out that, to which year Chinese steel industry could keep explosive expansion, it depends on the continuance of intensification of competitiveness of the steel consuming industries in China.

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