Does interest rate liberalisation affect the constancy of mean interest rates in China?

Purpose This paper aims to examine the impact of interest rate liberalisation on the constancy of mean interest rates in China to test the effect of financial reforms and provide strategies for future practices. Design/methodology/approach Bai and Perron’s (1998, 2003) methodology is used to test for structural breaks in the mean of different interest rates using Chinese data, and break dates are measured against the exact dates of the interest rate liberalisation. The performance of mean interest rates across the regimes defined by liberalisation dates is also investigated. Findings The main results show that interest rates generally increase (decrease) after deregulations on lending (deposit) rates, but these changes are not significant to induce a negative impact on the domestic economy. Instead, the infrequent but important shifts (structural breaks) in mean interest rates are caused by factors other than liberalisation such as economic shocks, inflationary expectation and liquidity crunch in China. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper provides unprecedented evidence on significant changes in interest rates attributable to the liberalisation within the Chinese context.