Marketization vs. market chase: Insights from implicit government guarantees

Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGFVs) and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) provide implicit guarantee during the issuing of bonds, thereby reducing their funding cost. The credit spreads are lower when issued by a LGFV with a higher administrative level. This means that implicit guarantee is also strengthened with government centralization. We also explain the anomaly of municipal corporate bonds (MCBs)’ spreads decrease after a marketization regulation of removing implicit guarantees. This paper provides strong evidence that the market will chase implicit guarantee when default wave comes even under tight government regulations.