Research on the regional variation of China's state-owned enterprises

Abstract

Drawing insights from theories of new regionalism and firm-region nexus in new economic geography, this paper analyzes empirically the regional variation of China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs hereafter). It reveals significant internal differentiation among China's state-owned sectors. Viewed at provincial level, SOEs in North and Northeast China were much larger and bigger than those in East and Southeast China, while their productive efficiency was greatly lagged behind by the latter. It is further found at municipal level that there emerges a trend of spatial concentration of highly productive SOEs toward coastal metropolitan areas. Statistical tests suggest that locally-specific traded and untraded interdependence is an important regional factor affecting the productive efficiency of SOEs. Specifically, SOEs with more local production and market linkages were more likely to benefit from external economies and achieve higher productive efficiency. Higher degree of diversification in local labor market allowed SOEs therein to adopt more flexible methods in labor management which was beneficial to their efficiency improvement. More untraded interdependence with foreign enterprises can facilitate SOEs to learn and adopt effective organizational structure and help them to improve productive efficiency.

借鉴西方经济地理学中的新区域主义和企业与区域联系的关系型理论框架， 对中国国 有企业的区域差异进行了实证分析， 发现中国的国有部门存在显著的内部差异。分省看， 存在显著的东西差异和南北差异。华北和东北的国有企业在规模上要远远大于华东和华南的国有企业， 但是前者的生产效率却要落后于后者。分地市看， 高生产效率的国有企业呈现逐渐 向沿海都市经济区集聚的空间态势。统计检验表明地方化的贸易和非贸易性联系是影响国有 企业生产效率的区域因素。具体而言： ① 与地方经济有着较多的生产和市场联系的国有企业， 受区域外部经济效应的影响， 其生产效率越高； ② 地方劳动力市场的多元化程度有利于国有企业采取灵活的薪酬制度和劳动力管理措施来提高生产效率； ③ 与外资企业的非贸易联系可以方便国有企业学习和采纳行之有效的组织行为和管治结构， 并促进其生产效率的提高。