What explains Chinese private entrepreneurs' charitable behaviors?—A story of dynamic reciprocal relationship between firms and the government

Cheryl Long and Jin Yang

China Economic Review, 2016, vol. 40, issue C, 1-16

Abstract: This paper studies Chinese private entrepreneurs' charitable behaviors by exploring the dynamic reciprocal relationship between private firms and local governments. By using three waves of a nationwide survey of private firms in 2002, 2004 and 2006 from China, we provide robust evidence that Chinese private entrepreneurs with access to preferential loans from state-owned banks when their businesses first started are more likely to participate in donation and anti-poverty programs organized by the government, and the effects of such loans are more pronounced for small firms and firms in regulated industries. Furthermore, we find that this reciprocal relationship between local governments and private entrepreneurs is a personal relationship rather than an institutional relationship, which declines in importance in areas with better legal institutions and in regions with change of local leadership. Finally, there is evidence that Chinese private entrepreneurs' charitable behaviors are also motivated by political returns and other individual characteristics.

Keywords: Charitable donation; Firm–government relationship; Private entrepreneurs; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D64 G21 L21 O16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043951X16300566
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chieco:v:40:y:2016:i:c:p:1-16

DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2016.05.001

Access Statistics for this article

China Economic Review is currently edited by B.M. Fleisher, K. X. D. Huang, M.E. Lovely, Y. Wen, X. Zhang and X. Zhu

More articles in China Economic Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().