A New Measurement of Sectoral Concentration of Credit Portfolios

In this paper, we construct a new measurement of sectoral concentration of credit portfolios risk-adjusted HHI. This measurement takes systematic risk of different sectors into consideration by weighting them with their betas. This paper investigates the effects of sectoral concentration on the Chinese banks' risk using panel data on 16 Chinese listed commercial banks during the 2007-2011 period and compares the results of the new measurement with those of more conventional measure Hill. We find that sectoral concentration is associated with higher risk, and our new measurement performs well to capture the change of systematic risk of sectors and exposures to sectors at the same time. Our analysis may provide important implication for regulators and policy makers of the banks in developing markets. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.