INSTITUTIONS MATTER DIFFERENTLY DEPENDING ON THE OWNERSHIP TYPES OF FIRMS: INTERACTING EFFECTS ON FIRM PRODUCTIVITY IN CHINA

Hyuntai Lee () and Keun Lee ()
Additional contact information
Hyuntai Lee: Center for Area Studies, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, 370, Sicheong-daero, Sejong-si, 30147, Korea

The Singapore Economic Review (SER), 2022, vol. 67, issue 04, 1185-1208

Abstract: Ownership and institutions are regarded as key determinants of firm performance. Using data of Chinese firms from 1998 to 2009, this study tests the separate and interacting effects of ownership and institutions. The divergent performance of firms can be explained from the heterogeneous ownership context, as confirmed by the literature, and through variations in the way that firms of different ownership types use and exploit institutions. Privately owned firms tend to exploit considerably larger benefits from the same institutions in comparison with foreign-owned enterprises (FEs) or state-owned enterprises (SOEs). FEs or SOEs also obtain some benefits; however, these benefits are significantly smaller than those obtained by private enterprises (PEs). Results can be attributed to the differences in the aims and incentives of firms with diverse ownership types. While the initial productivity of PEs may be lower than that of FEs at the low levels of institutional development, PEs are shown to eventually catch up with FEs because institutions develop further over time to be better exploited by PEs than FEs. Hence, any policy design should consider this coevolving nature of institutions and firm ownership; whereas private firms cannot prosper without sound institutions, institutional development may be useless unless there are private firms that can benefit from this institutional development.

Keywords: Firm productivity; institutions; ownership; Chinese economy; coevolution; private firms; foreign-owned firms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L1 L2 M2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0217590818500224
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
Working Paper: Institutions Matter differently depending on the Ownership Types of Firms: Interacting Effects on Firm Productivity in China (2018)
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:wsi:serxxx:v:67:y:2022:i:04:n:s0217590818500224

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S0217590818500224

Access Statistics for this article

The Singapore Economic Review (SER) is currently edited by Euston Quah

More articles in The Singapore Economic Review (SER) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().