Does Privatization Work in China?

Abstract

Does privatization work If so, how does it work We seek here to provide empirical answers to these two questions by considering the Chinese privatization experience. Using a detailed World Bank survey of 299 Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) across six sectors and five cities from 1996 to 2001, we found that: (1) there is clear evidence that better-performing SOEs were chosen to be privatized first; (2) privatization in general works in China, significantly improving sales revenue and lowering the costs of the privatized firms and resulting in large gains in profitability and productivity, while not at the expense of massive unemployment; (3) fully-privatized firms with controlling private shares perform better than partially-privatized firms where the state remains a dominant owner; and (4) privately-controlled firms focus on product restructuring, while state-controlled firms on direct cost-reducing means and debt restructuring. Cost restructuring seems to work better for state-controlled firms while debt restructuring works better for privately-controlled firms.

本文研究中國國有企業民營化是否有效的問題。我們通過對國企民營化進程的考察來對此問題作出經驗解答。根據世界銀行一份對中國五個城市、覆蓋六個行業的近300家國有企業(SOEs)1996—2001年間的調查數據,我們發現:(1)績效較好的國有企業優先被民營化;(2)總體上來說,中國的民營化是富有成效的,尤其是提高了銷售收入,降低了企業的成本,并最終導致企業盈利能力和生產率的大幅提高;而且在獲得這些收益的同時并沒有帶來大規模的失業問題;(3)由民營機構控股、徹底民營化的企業比那些仍然是國有控股、部分民營化的企業績效表現更好。