报告人：柳春

评论人：史新鹭

时间：2016年7月6日（周三）下午3：00—5：00

地点：文管大楼868教室（小教室）

报告题目：“Guanxi” investment, corruption, and technical efficiency: Evidence from Chinese private enterprises

作者：Chun Liu*, Yi Zhang** and Zheming Yan***

* Jinhe Center for Economic Research, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China; E-mail: lc2301050226@126.com

** Jinhe Center for Economic Research, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China; E-mail: zhangyi.econ@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

*** International Business School, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710119, China

内容摘要：Emerging economies are characterized by weak market-supporting institutions and strong government intervention. To smooth their business operations, private entrepreneurs in these economies typically invest in relationship-specific capital so as to establish “guanxi” with relevant bureaucrats who have discretionary authority over various business regulations and critical economic resources. Based on a large representative dataset of private manufacturing enterprises in China, this paper employs the stochastic frontier approach with heteroscedasticity and non-monotonic efficiency effects to test the impact of “guanxi” investment on firm efficiency. The empirical results show that “guanxi” investment, which is measured by entertainment fees, significantly improves the technical efficiency of firms. It also reduces the variance of the distribution of technical efficiency and therefore lowers firms’ production uncertainty. In addition, we find that on average, foreign firms, exporting firms, large-scaled firms, and firms located in east areas are technically more efficient, which is mostly consistent with the extant literature. Our results are robust to alternative assumptions about the distribution of the inefficiency effect and other measures of “guanxi” investment. Our findings emphasize that in a society where the power of the state vis-à-vis the market is greater, corruption could be a significant factor reducing the heteroscedasticity in technical efficiency of firms. We also provide potential explanations for the well-documented “East Asian paradox”.

报告人简介：柳春，西安交通大学金禾中心应用经济学博士生。研究领域为制度与经济增长、中国经济结构转型。

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