What Causes Privatization? Evidence from Import Competition in China

In this paper, we identify product market competition as a driver of privatization. Using product market shocks caused by trade liberalization of China, which has the world’s largest state sector, we find that subjecting state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to higher competition leads to an increase in private ownership. This response is strengthened when SOEs operate in industries with large technology or productivity gaps from those in the frontier economies or when SOEs impose large fiscal burdens on local governments. Our findings are consistent with politicians’ incentives to boost economic growth for better career development and to shed burdens when rents decrease. This paper was accepted by Tomasz Piskorski, finance. Funding: C. Lin acknowledges financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72192841]. Q. Hu acknowledges financial support from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and the Renmin University of China [Grant 21XNF002]. W. Li acknowledges financial support from the Major Project of the Ministry of Education [Grant 22JZD007] and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72132002]. L. Wei acknowledges financial support from the Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee [Grant 13501619]. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4847 .