竞争、产权、公司治理三大理论的相对重要性及交互关系

对于国有企业与民营企业间的绩效差异,文献一般从三个理论角度进行研究:竞争、产权与公司治理。但是我们认为其中的各种观点都只强调了某一个方面而忽略了其他方面。本文采用世界银行对中国5大城市7个行业的700多家公司在1996—2001年运营情况的调查数据,分别从单因素效应、多因素效应以及它们之间的相互作用三个方面,对以上三个理论的相对重要性进行了实证研究。研究发现:(1)当分别对各单个因素进行考察时,各因素都对样本公司绩效有积极影响。然而当对这些因素进行综合考察时,我们发现产权结构与公司治理作用相对重要,而竞争效应则不甚显著;(2)在产权与公司治理,以及产权与竞争之间,存在着某种程度的替代性;(3)非国有企业在某些治理机制方面比国有企业显示出特定的优势,但另一方面市场竞争对于国有企业绩效影响大于对非国有企业的影响。研究表明,现有的理论观点都有其片面性,对企业绩效的全面的研究需要将三个理论体系结合起来进行综合考察。我们的研究将对中国正在推行的民营化浪潮,以及改善公司治理和完善市场竞争,都具有重要的政策指导意义。

Competition, Ownership, Corporate Governance: Their Importance and Interactions

There exist three views in the comparative literature on the efficiency of state-owned versus private enterprises: competition, ownership, and governance. Each view emphasizes on one aspect while ignoring others. This paper employs a unique World Bank survey data of 736 Chinese firms across seven sectors and five cities from 1996 to 2001 to assess the relative importance of the above three views, both independently, jointly, and their interactions. It is found that:(1)when examined independently each determinant matters in explaining the efficiency of our sample firms. However, when they are jointly examined, ownership structure and corporate governance are relatively more important, while the competition effect is less significant;(2)there appears to exist some degree of substitutability between two pairs: privatization and corporate governance, and privatization and competition; and(3)non state-owned enterprises(non-SOEs)seem to have certain advantage in some governance mechanisms than SOEs, but market competition matters more for SOEs than for non-SOEs. These findings suggest that the three views are indeed incomplete by themselves, and a complete package requires some combination of these determinants. Finally, our results have important policy implications for China's on-going privatization movement and her strive for better corporate governance and market competition.