CIAO

CIAO DATE: 3/5/2007

Firm Size, Technical Efficiency and Productivity Growth in Chinese Industry'

Dic Lo, Yuk-Shing Cheng

December 2004

School of Oriental and African Studies

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, China's state leadership has adopted a policy of nurturing the competitiveness of large state-owned industrial enterprises. The implications of this policy have been a matter of debate in the literature. This paper seeks to provide some useful input into the debate. With a view of investigating into the potential of long-term development of large enterprises, we estimate the "sequential production technology" in computing the Malmquist productivity index for various size-groups of enterprises in Chinese industry. Our findings indicate that large enterprises did register the fastest productivity growth and improvement in technical efficiency in the 1994-97 period. It thus appears that large-scale, mainly state-owned Chinese enterprises have exhibited the potential of making noticeable improvements and the relevant state policy does have its justification.

Keywords: firm size, technical efficiency, productivity, China, industry

 

Full Text, (PDF, 384 KB)

 

 

CIAO home page