Rethinking critical juncture analysis: institutional change in Chinese banking and finance

China's response to the global financial crisis and its post-2008 stimulus package and credit surge marked a critical juncture for its state-directed banking system. One result was the subsequent growth of the shadow banking sector marked by incremental 'informal institutional adaptation' and a greater role for markets.

This paper employs historical institutionalist (HI) theory to help explain these developments but critique its current approach to critical junctures which has a limited, temporarily specific and overly static account of institutional change; one which overlooks the importance of changes on either side of the critical junctures and which is unable to integrate its emphasis on critical junctures with alternative theories, such as incrementalist accounts of institutional change.

Using the empirical case of the evolution in China's post-GFC banking and finance, a revised institutional approach is developed which is able to bridge these theoretical divides.

About the Speaker

Stephen Bell is Professor of Political Economy and former Head of the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and an Honorary Professor at the University of Sheffield. His main research interests focus on institutional questions associated with the politics of economic policy.

He is the author or editor of twelve books and has published widely in national and international journals. His most recent (co-authored) books include The Rise of the People's Bank of China, Harvard University Press, and Masters of the Universe, Slaves of the Market, Harvard University Press, Fair Share: Competing Claims and Australia's Economic Future, Melbourne University Press, and Banking on the Growth Models: China's Troubled Road to Financial Reform and Economic Rebalancing, Cornell University Press, (forthcoming).

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