Recently, Associate Professor Wang Haicheng of our School, as the first author, co-authored with Dr. Zhang Weihao of the School of Economics and Trade of Hunan University and Dr. Xia Ziying of the School of Economics of Renmin University of China and finished the paper, Industrial Scale Preference and Total Factor Productivity of Enterprises - Evidence from the Provincial Government's Five-Year Plan. It was published in the authoritative domestic journal Economic Research(No. 5, 2023).

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China stressed that it is necessary to "promote the qualitative and effective improvement of the economy and the reasonable growth of the quantity", and scientific understanding of the relationship between the quality and quantity of economic development has become a major issue of common concern to policy makers and academic researchers. Based on the Chinese provincial government's "Tenth Five-Year Plan" to "Twelfth Five-Year Plan", this paper estimates the industrial scale preference of local governments and examines its impact on the total factor productivity of firms. The results show that the local government's industry scale preference generally reduces the total factor productivity of enterprises; The influence channel test found that industrial scale preference reduces the total factor productivity of enterprises by reducing the efficiency of resource allocation, inhibiting market competition and hindering the entry of enterprises, but it improves the total factor productivity of enterprises by promoting the agglomeration effect. The heterogeneity test shows that the efficiency loss caused by industrial scale preference is mainly reflected in state-owned enterprises, industries with diminishing returns to scale for large-scale enterprises and enterprises in regions with low development degree of factor markets. Although the industrial scale preference brings a certain loss of efficiency, it effectively increases the investment, sales income and tax revenue at the enterprise level. The article suggests that the current economic society has entered a new stage of development, and the industrial policy formulation and implementation of local governments should break the "worship of scale" and "scale anxiety", pay attention to mining long-term competitive advantages, pursue efficient and quality industrial development, and "better balance the effective improvement of quality and reasonable growth of quantity".

Economic Research is a comprehensive journal of economic theory sponsored by the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Founded in 1955, it is recognized as the most internationally influential academic journal (humanities and social sciences) in China and the "top" journal in the field of economics in China.

Wang Haicheng, Zhang Weihao, and Xia Ziying, Industrial Scale Preference And Firm Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from Provincial Government Five-Year Plan, Published In Economic Research in the 5th Issue of 2023, article links: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/fLSN_dVO_L_YjhTDipL0Ug

Introduction of the author：

Wang Haicheng is an associate professor at BNUBS. He received his Ph. D. from the School of Economics and Trade of Hunan University. He was formerly an associate researcher at the Academy of Macroeconomic Research of the National Development and Reform Commission. His research interests include global industrial chain and supply chain, industrial policy, and intellectual property protection. In recent years, he has published more than 30 papers in authoritative journals such as Economic Research (4), Management World, World Economy, Economics (Quarterly), People's Daily, Economic Daily (Theoretical edition), and many of them have been reprinted by Xinhua Digest, China Social Science Digest, and Renmin University Photocopying Newspaper Materials. He is an anonymous reviewer for journals such as Economic Research, World Economy, China Industrial Economy and Economic Trends. He has presided over a number of projects entrusted by the Asian Finance Association, the Defense Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, and the National Social Science Fund Youth Project, the National Social Science Fund major project sub-project, and the National Development and Reform Commission. He won many honors, such as Provincial Excellent Doctoral Dissertation, Provincial Social Science Award first Prize (ranked 2nd), and Yasuke International Trade Research Award Academic Encouragement Award. A number of his think tank reports have been adopted by the Central Office and the State Office, and he has received positive instructions from Party and state leaders.

Provided by Scientific Research Office

Reviewed by Cai Hongbo