产业规模偏好与企业全要素生产率——来自省级政府五年规划文本的证据

Scale Preference in Industry and Firm's TFP:Evidence from Five-year Plan Texts of Local Governments

党的二十大报告强调要“推动经济实现质的有效提升和量的合理增长”,因而科学认识经济发展质和量的关系成为政策制定者和学术研究者共同关心的重大问题。本文基于中国省级政府“十五”计划至“十二五”规划文本,测算了地方政府的产业规模偏好,并考察了其对企业全要素生产率的影响。研究发现:(1)地方政府的产业规模偏好总体上降低了企业全要素生产率;(2)产业规模偏好通过降低资源配置效率、抑制市场竞争、阻碍企业进入降低了企业全要素生产率,但通过促进集聚效应提高了企业全要素生产率;(3)产业规模偏好带来的效率损失主要体现在国有企业、大规模企业、规模报酬递减行业和要素市场发育程度较低地区企业;(4)虽然产业规模偏好带来一定的效率损失,但有效增加了企业层面的投资、销售收入和税收。本文对于新发展阶段更好统筹质的有效提升和量的合理增长、进一步优化地方政府产业政策设计有着重要启示。

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China(CPC)emphasizes the necessity to"effectively upgrade and appropriately expand China's economic output".From the industrial systems perspective,China's speed-oriented economic growth path has been developed since the reform and opening up,which relies on low-cost factors,emulating technologies and a large domestic and global low-end target market.Currently,with the shift of China's economy from the high-speed growth stage to the high-quality development stage,it has become inevitable to rely on TFP growth to achieve"effective upgrading"of the economy.In contemporary times,promoting TFP has become a consensus and objective for formulating and implementing industrial policies worldwide.Additionally,given the nature of central-local relationships,industry development in China,being a large developing nation,is primarily driven and realized at the local level.To political performance evaluation,regional economic development,tax revenue expansion and other concerns,local governments endeavor to modify the allocation of factors,providing support some industries or even prioritize a specific industry to become larger and stronger,through the implementation of diverse industrial policies.These approaches indicate a conspicuous"scale preference".Therefore,the issue is whether the local governments'scale preference in industry impacts the TFP of firms,and if so,is this impact positive or negative?This paper contributes to the literature mainly in two ways:Firstly,it enriches the research on the impact assessment of key industry policy.Based on whether a particular industry is targeted or encouraged in the"Five-year plan"of local governments,the existing studies have primarily focused on the impact of key industry policy on TFP,technological innovation,investor behavior,export quality,etc.This paper analyzes the"scale preference in industry"and thus expands the research scope of key industry policy and enriches the evaluation of industrial policy effectiveness.Secondly,it supplements the line of research which study the impact of size-dependent policies(SDPs)on firm performance.Existing literature focuses on industrial policies that take firm size as the basis and standard for policy implementation and examine the impact of these differentiated industrial policies on enterprise performance,this study focuses on the impact of local governments'industrial policies based on firm size as the policy objective.Based on the texts of the"Five-year plan"of provincial governments and the 2001-2014 database on Chinese industrial enterprises,this study empirically analyzes the impact of local governments'scale preference in industry on firms'TFP.Results show that local governments'scale preference in industry significantly decreases firms'TFP.The negative effects can be explained by degrading resource allocation efficiency,inhibiting market competition,and obstructing firm entry.However,there is also a positive effect resulting in promoting agglomeration.Heterogeneity tests find that the efficiency loss caused by the local governments'scale preference in industry is more significant in state-owned firms,largescale firms,firms in industries with diminishing returns to scale and firms in areas with lower developed factor markets.Furthermore,we evidence that local governments'scale preference in industry is not entirely a kind of irrational behavior.The policy implications of this paper are include:Firstly,the formulation and implementation of industrial policies by local governments should prioritize efficiency and avoid being influenced by the""cult of scale"and"anxiety about scale".Secondly,local governments should reform the factors allocation to be more market-oriented,strengthen competition policy,break irrational restrictions and hidden barriers to market entry,and optimize the environment for industrial agglomeration.Thirdly,local governments should improve the legal and regulatory system for fair competition,accelerate the construction of the factor market system,and cautiously implement scale-oriented industrial policies for industries with diminishing returns to scale.Lastly,the assessment of political performance for local leadership should prioritize efficiency and take TFP improvement as a critical and leading indicator.