Can Deregulation of Market Access Improve Corporate Investment Efficiency: A Quasinatural Experiment Based on the “Negative List for Market Access” Pilot Project
WANG Xiongyuan, XU Jing
School of Accounting, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law
Summary:
The negative list for market access is the main channel for relaxing market access. The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee proposes to implement a unified negative list system for market access. The term “negative list for market access” is repeatedly emphasized in the Chinese government's important reports and documents, highlighting the significance of the system for maintaining the market order of fair competition and establishing fair, open, and transparent market rules. The negative list for market access refers to a document that outlines industries and fields that are prohibited or restricted to private investment by companies in China. Industries and fields that are not on the list can be equally accessed by all types of market entities according to the law. This system reduces barriers to market access and attracts more players to enter the market, resulting in competitive effects on the market. Moderate market competition is beneficial. Market efficiency can be improved by exerting competitive pressure on enterprises, reducing agency costs, and extracting enterprise inefficiency. However, excessive market competition can lead to market efficiency loss, which may motivate certain companies to prevent other enterprises from entering the market through preemption and overinvestment; ultimately, this negatively impacts market efficiency. The question here is whether the negative list for market access effectively exploits the market competition mechanism by stimulating market vitality and standardizing government behavior to improve market efficiency. The negative list for market access model is a major upgrade to the negative list governance model used in the domestic economic market. Such a system design is neither used locally nor abroad. Moreover, such a system design has strong theoretical and practical implications in the evaluation of the effects of the negative list for market access on the allocation of market resources. The direct aim of reforming market access is to improve market efficiency, and at the micro level, corporate investment efficiency is an embodiment of market efficiency. The change from strict to relaxed market access directly affects the corporate investment efficiency. Before the reform, the regulation of market access may prohibit enterprises from entering specific fields or increase the entry barriers for new entrants, resulting in a lack of motivation to improve investment efficiency for those incumbent enterprises. After the reform, many market players seize investment opportunities to enter once-restricted fields. Incumbent enterprises in this field will choose to optimize their investment efficiency or make irrational investments. Accordingly, this study examines the effects of the negative list for market access on corporate investment efficiency to evaluate the micro-level market efficiency of the system. This paper makes several contributions to the literature. First, theoretically, this study discusses the impact of market access system reforms on enterprise investment efficiency and provides new insights into the economic effects of market access reform. The literature mostly states that market access deregulation affects the business behaviors of micro-enterprises by reducing transaction costs at the market and enterprise levels. Apart from China's unique institutional background and the particularity of the negative list for market access, this paper studies the impact of system reforms to relax market access on enterprise investment efficiency based on competition sufficiency and fairness. Second, this study tests the policy effects of the negative list system pilot based on corporate investment efficiency and provides empirical evidence supporting the practice of the negative list for market access in China; this system provides solutions for improving the performance of the government's dual functions. The negative list for market access actively guides the expectations and behaviors of market subjects, effectively standardizes governmental behavior, and facilitates the establishment of an effective market and a promising government.
王雄元, 徐晶. 放松市场准入管制提高了企业投资效率吗？——基于“市场准入负面清单”试点的准自然实验[J]. 金融研究, 2022, 507(9): 169-187.
WANG Xiongyuan, XU Jing. Can Deregulation of Market Access Improve Corporate Investment Efficiency: A Quasinatural Experiment Based on the “Negative List for Market Access” Pilot Project. Journal of Financial Research, 2022, 507(9): 169-187.
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