State Capitalism, Economic Systems and the Performance of State Owned Firms

Saul Estrin (), Zhixiang Liang (), Daniel Shapiro () and Michael Carney ()
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Saul Estrin: Managerial Economics and Strategy at the Department of Management, London School of Economics, United Kingdom
Zhixiang Liang: Strategic Management at the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University Montréal, Québec, Canada
Daniel Shapiro: Global Business Strategy at the Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Michael Carney: Management Faculty, Senior Concordia University Research Chair at the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University Montréal, Québec, Canada

Acta Oeconomica, 2019, vol. 69, issue supplement1, 175-193

Abstract: In this paper, we pursue two related research questions. First, we enquire whether state owned enterprises (SOEs) perform better than privately owned firms in a large variety of emerging markets. To test this, we develop a unique dataset using firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES), resulting in a sample of over 50,000 firms from 57 understudied countries including emerging capitalist, former socialist and state capitalist ones. Our results suggest that SOEs do display productivity advantages over private firms in these understudied economies. Our second research question asks whether the performance of state owned firms in these understudied countries is context specific, namely whether performance depends on the institutional system into which a country is classified. We refer to these systems as configurations. In particular, we are interested in whether state owned firms perform better in “state capitalist” countries including China and Vietnam. We find empirical support for the argument that the “state-led” configuration provides better institutional support for the ownership advantages of SOEs than others.

Keywords: comparative economic systems; state ownership; Varieties of Institutional Systems (VIS); firm performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L44 P31 P5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
Note: Author order does not reflect contribution, which has been equal.
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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