异地商会与企业跨地区发展

Hometown-based Business Associations and the Cross-regional Development of Firms

本文研究异地商会这一正式社会网络是否能帮助企业突破跨地区发展障碍。以手工整理的上市公司新增异地子公司测量企业跨地区发展,以不同时点的异地商会成立为外生冲击,本文构建了多点冲击双重差分模型,实证结果发现:(1)异地商会促进了家乡地企业的跨地区发展,家乡地企业向异地商会所在地的新增子公司平均增加47.3%。(2)异地商会的正式社会网络作用是单向的,主要从非市场途径进行信息传递和资源获取,其在异地市场不发达、政府资源控制较强以及市场信息获取成本高的地区更强。此外,异地商会还与地区间的非正式社会网络存在替代作用。(3)进一步,子公司数据与工业企业数据库匹配考察这种异地发展的效果表明,异地商会提升了异地子公司业绩和运营效率,降低了运营费用。本文拓展和丰富了社会网络影响企业发展障碍的相关研究,结论表明更好地促进和发挥异地商会这种正式社会网络作用,可能是解决我国区域间不平衡、不充分发展的重要微观路径。

Due to the natural frictions in business networks(such as lack of information,trust,etc.),it is difficult for firms to develop effective business relationships with each other.This often leads to network-based barriers of development.Theoretically,business associations(BAs)have the potential to overcome the barriers caused by the lack of business relations,but few empirical studies examine this prediction due to the lack of data and the endogeneity problem.Cai&Szeidl(2018)provides the first empirical evidence using field experiments.They find that local BAs can help firms overcome development barriers and help firm to grow.This paper goes a step further and focuses on the influence of cross-regional BAs.Using the establishment of hometown-based BAs(HBAs)as an exogenous shock,this paper explores whether cross-regional BAs can help firms break through the cross-regional development barriers.The endogeneity arising from the relation between BAs and firms'development is the biggest challenge for this research topic.Since the implementation of the Ministry of Civil Affairs of China's regulation Opinions on Registration of Foreign Chambers of Commerce,the application and approval of HBAs has not been influenced by hometown firms,which provides an exogenous shock to examine the influence of HBAs on firms'cross-regional development.Using hand-collected data on the cross-regional subsidiaries of listed companies from 2002 to 2013 as a measure of firms'cross-regional development,we conduct a difference-in-differences test.We find that(1)HBAs significantly promote cross-regional investment,and the new subsidiaries of hometown province firms in the HBA's operating province increase by 47.3%after an HBA is established.(2)The promoting effect of an HBA on cross-regional investment is unidirectional,and is stronger in target provinces with underdeveloped inputs/products markets,serious government intervention,and limited access to information.These results suggest that the effect of HBAs is related to business networks'information transmission and resource acquisition functions through non-market channels.In addition,we find a substitutional relation between HBAs and other informal social networks.(3)Finally,we show that HBAs can improve the performance and reduce the costs of subsidiaries in the province that the HBA is registered in.The HBAs discussed in this paper are formal social networks in the market,which can be effectively dominated by the government.Therefore,our study has important policy implications for local governments:they can take advantage of HBAs to improve cross-regional investment between provinces,especially when informal social networks are absent.It may be an important micro-path to solving the imbalance and inadequate development among regions in China.Our study makes the following contributions.First,our study expands the literature by showing that BAs can overcome firm development barriers.Cai&Szeidl's(2018)field experiments provide evidence that BAs can improve local firms'performances by expanding their business relationship.We use the establishment of HBAs at different times as an exogenous shock to examine the impact of cross-regional BAs on firms'cross-regional development,this complements Cai&Szeidl's research(2018)by breaking through the space constraints of local BAs.Second,this paper contributes to the hometown-based networks literature.Studies of hometown-based networks focus on informal social networks based on the relationships of local individuals,such as executives and officials.This paper focuses on HBAs,which are formal networks.Third,this paper enriches our understanding of the“bridge effect”of intermediary organizations.Recent Studies show that foreign institutional investors facilitate cross-border mergers and acquisitions.We provide evidence for the bridge effect of HBAs,which can form formal social networks in the market,on firm cross-regional investments.