State-owned enterprises' political capital,city administrative rank and economic resources acquisition: Empirical evidence from Chinese capital markets

This paper examines the impact of Chinese State-Owned Enterprises' (SOE) corporate political capital and the administrative rank of the city where the firm is located on their ability to acquire economic resources. The study found that the stronger the political capital owned by SOEs and the higher the administrative rank of the cities in which SOEs were located, the easier it was for them to obtain more loans and subsidies. We also found that as the city administrative rank increased, the positive effect of SOEs' political capital on economic resources acquisition also increased. When SOEs were divided into commercial competitive versus specific functional enterprises, the administrative rank of the city in which the enterprise was located played a significant positive role in obtaining economic resources for commercial competitive enterprises, while the role of their political capital played a limited role. For specific functional enterprises, their own political capital played the more significant positive role. This paper expands the research scope of corporate political connections with a new perspective.