Improving Financial Stability: Can European Union Member States Learn From China's Experience in Enhancing Commercial Banks' Social Responsibilities?

This paper concerns the financial stability during the crisis. It introduces the experience of Chinese commercial banks. The Chinese commercial banks emphasise social responsibilities, which contributed to improve the stability of the Chinese financial system, while the increased financial stability brought tremendous positive effects to the development of economy, society and also the commercial banks themselves. We argue that in China, both the government and the financial authority enhance the commercial banks' social responsibility. There are sufficient incentives for the staff of commercial banks to increase the achievements of enhancing the social responsibilities under effective formal institutions. We further argue that, although the legal foundations of China and the EU are different, it is possible for the EU Member States to learn from China to increase the financial stability by enhancing the commercial banks' social responsibilities. We find that because the EU has much more developed financial markets, it is possible for the EU to create effective institutions and legal framework to achieve that goal through the market mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]