Retained State Shareholding in Chinese PLCs: Does Government Ownership Reduce Corporate Value?

Lihui Tian and Saul Estrin ()
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Saul Estrin: London School of Economics

No 1493, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The role of government shareholding in corporate performance is central to an understanding of China’s newly privatized large firms. In this paper, we analyze shareholders as agents that can both harm and benefit companies. We examine the ownership structure of 826 listed corporations and find that government shareholding is surprisingly large. Its effect on corporate value is found to be negative, but non-monotonic. Up to a certain threshold, corporate value decreases as government shareholding stakes increase, but beyond this corporate value begins to increase. We interpret this in terms of ownership concentration and the advantages of government partiality.

Keywords: government shareholding; corporate governance; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G15 G32 G34 L33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2005-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc, nep-fin and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published - published in: Journal of Comparative Economics, 2008, 36 (1), 74-89

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Working Paper: Retained State Shareholding in Chinese PLCs: Does Government Ownership Reduce Corporate Value? (2005)
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