This paper focuses on the Shanghai pilot free trade zone (FTZ). It investigates the effect of the FTZ policy on regional financial development. The synthetic control method employs quarterly data from 2005 to 2019 at the provincial level to investigate counterfactual states before and after the pilot FTZ was set up. First, our results reveal that the Shanghai pilot FTZ had a positive influence on the following four variables proxied for regional financial development: (i) the scale of regional financial development; (ii) the efficiency of indirect financial development; (iii) the efficiency of direct financial development; (iv) the structure of financial development. Second, our results found that the policy effects that began to emerge from 2014 onwards exhibited a steadily increasing trend. As a result, the four proxy variables have increased by (i) 197 percent, (ii) 202 percent, (iii) 9.4 percent, and (iv) 15.2 percent, respectively. That is, the scale of regional financial development and the efficiency of indirect financial development have increased more than the other proxy variables.

中文翻译：

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自贸试验区对区域金融发展的影响

本文重点介绍上海自由贸易试验区（FTZ）。它研究了自贸区政策对区域金融发展的影响。综合控制法采用2005-2019年省级季度数据，考察自贸试验区设立前后的反事实状态。首先，我们的研究结果表明，上海自贸试验区对以下四个代表区域金融发展的变量具有正向影响：（i）区域金融发展规模；(ii) 间接金融发展的效率；(iii) 直接金融发展的效率；（四）金融发展结构。其次，我们的研究结果发现，从 2014 年起开始显现的政策效应呈现出稳步上升的趋势。因此，四个代理变量分别增加了 (i) 197%、(ii) 202%、(iii) 9.4% 和 (iv) 15.2%。即区域金融发展规模和间接金融发展效率比其他代理变量增长幅度更大。