[We study the share privatization process in China to investigate whether and how the removal of market frictions is associated with efficiency gains. Prior to the reform, domestic A-shares were divided into tradable and non-tradable shares. As a result of the reform, holders of non-tradable shares compensated holders of tradable shares in order to make their shares tradable. We show that size is positively associated with both the gain in risk sharing and the price impact of more shares coming on the market as a result of the reform. Our study highlights the role of risk sharing in China's share issue privatization process.]

This paper examines how government intervention affects firms' investment and investment efficiency, focusing on the world's largest economic stimulus package (ESP) during the 2008 global financial crisis period. The RMB four trillion ESP aimed to restore the economy by promoting investment in priority areas. Thus it provided an exogenous shock to firms' investment environment and exacerbated the impact of government intervention on firms' investment and investment efficiency. We use propensity score matching to match government-intervened firms with their controls to reduce the endogeneity issue of government intervention. Our difference-in-differences analysis shows that government-intervened firms invested more than control firms. Further analysis shows that the source of funding for investment was mainly from bank loans rather than internal cash flows. However, the post-investment performance was poor. We find that the investment efficiency of government-intervened firms decreased and government-intervened firms overinvested after the ESP. Our results are robust to alternative model specifications and placebo tests. The findings suggest that government intervention can play a negative role in government-intervened firms.

We study the share privatization process in China to investigate whether and how the removal of market frictions is associated with efficiency gains. Prior to the reform, domestic A-shares were divided into tradable and non-tradable shares. As a result of the reform, holders of non-tradable shares compensated holders of tradable shares in order to make their shares tradable. We show that size is positively associated with both the gain in risk sharing and the price impact of more shares coming on the market as a result of the reform. Our study highlights the role of risk sharing in China's share issue privatization process. The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]., Oxford University Press.