外资身份的重要性:基于外资股权限定的经验分析

Does Foreign Status Really Matter?

与东道国当地企业相比,外资企业享受着税收优惠等超国民待遇,导致难以断定外资绩效优势究竟来自企业自身竞争能力,还是仅仅体现了特殊身份收益。基于商务部制订的25%外资股权身份认定门槛,本文发现:外资优惠政策激励导致企业分布失衡的典型事实,25%股权右侧区域企业数目是左侧对照组的3倍多,且主要体现在引资鼓励类行业;在股权比例20%-30%范围内的企业,虽然外资企业在税收优惠、销售业绩、流动性等经营绩效表现更好,但在生产率方面却无显著差异;地区与行业引资优惠政策是导致外资分布失衡的重要原因;以2007年“内外资两税合一”为准自然实验的研究发现,取消所得税优惠之后,企业不再偏好更高的外资股权比例。本文研究表明外资身份受益主要体现在税收优惠方面,但对企业生产率的影响有限,而且这一吸引力在外资优惠取消之后逐渐减弱。

Compared to local firms in the host country,foreign subsidiaries enjoy super-national treatment,such as tax incentives,which makes it difficult to identify the role played by the competitiveness of firms and that of preferential policy treatment.Based on the foreign status identification threshold of 25%of foreign ownership established by the Ministry of Commerce,this paper finds that:(1)the number of firms on the right side of the 25%foreign share threshold is three times higher than that on the left,and this mainly occurs in the industries that attract the most foreign investment;(2)within the group of firms with a foreign share range between 20%and 30%,those with foreign status benefit most from tax incentives,sales performance,liquidity,etc.,while,on the other hand,they do not show any significant difference in terms of productivity and markup;(3)both regional and industrial FDI policies are important in explaining the distributional imbalance of foreign firms;and(4)using the 2007“Corporate Income Tax Integration”as a quasi-natural experiment,it follows that after eliminating income tax concessions,firms no longer prefer higher proportions of foreign share.The results show that the benefits of foreign status are mainly reflected in tax incentives and business performance,but their impact on corporate productivity is limited.