Late last year, Beijing became increasingly worried about the health of the private sector. In particular, it focused its concerns on the difficulties small, private firms had in accessing cheap credit. Yet access to credit has been a perennial problem for the private sector stretching back over a decade. So, why the renewed concern? The most common explanation is that… READ MORE
In 2016, a spate of fraud involving bankers’ acceptance drafts (BADs) and commercial acceptances drafts (CADs)—which are collectively called commercial paper or corporate bills—led to a major contraction in both their issuance and the volume of bills that are discounted. While that has seemingly helped erase the worst abuses, the fallout is still being felt in the real economy. Commercial… READ MORE