Das (wasted) kapital
Subtitle: firm ownership and investment efficiency in China
By: David Dollar, Shang-Jin Wei.
Contributors: Wei, Shang-Jin.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- no. 13103.; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 13103.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 40
Subjects: Business enterprises -- China -- Finance -- Mathematical models; Corporations -- China -- Finance; Investments -- China; China -- Economic conditions -- 20th century
Description: Based on a survey that we designed and that covers a stratified random sample of 12,400 firms in 120 cities in China with firm-level accounting information for 2002-2004, this paper examines the presence of systematic distortions in capital allocation that result in uneven marginal returns to capital across firm ownership, regions, and sectors. It provides a systematic comparison of investment efficiency among wholly and partially state-owned, wholly and partially foreign-owned, and domestic privately owned firms, conditioning on their sector, location, and size characteristics. It finds that even after a quarter-of-century of reforms, state-owned firms still have significantly lower returns to capital, on average, than domestic private or foreign-owned firms. Similarly, certain regions and sectors have consistently lower returns to capital than other regions and sectors. By our calculation, if China succeeds in allocating its capital more efficiently, it could reduce its capital stock by 8 percent without sacrificing its economic growth (and hence could raise its household consumption and deliver a faster improvement to its citizens' living standard).
Notes: "May 2007"

Includes bibliographical references (p. 19).

Also available in PDF from the NBER world wide web site (www.nber.org).