Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/279301 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 10551
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
Seminal theories of the firm posit that firm ownership is allocated to minimize contractual inefficiencies. Yet, it remains unclear how much the optimal ownership choice affects firm performance in practice. This paper provides a first quantification of the gains from optimal ownership within multinational firms, by exploiting a major liberalization of China's policy restrictions on foreign ownership. The liberalization allowed previously restricted firms to become fully foreign owned. We find that these reoptimized ownership choices raise firm output by 40% and productivity by 7.5% on average. An extended property-rights theory of the multinational firm rationalizes these effects and their heterogeneity.
Subjects: 
multinational firms
ownership
integration
firm performance
property-rights theory
China
JEL: 
D23
F21
F23
L22
L23
Document Type: 
Working Paper
Appears in Collections:

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.