The Influence Of Soe's Ownership Structure On Corporate Performance

State-Owned Enterprises(SOEs)play an important role in the national economy,especially in the public services,natural monopolies,finance,national security and other fields.In the new period,the reform of SOEs has been deepened continuously.The Central Committee explicitly proposed to develop mixed ownership economy,to strengthen and improve the Party's leadership over SOEs.How to arrange the ownership structure of SOEs should be an urgent problem.Taking 850 listed SOEs in Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange as samples,this paper discusses the influence of ownership structure on corporate performance from comparative perspective of direct ownership and ultimate ownership.Meanwhile,we have deep consideration of the endogeneity of ownership structure,which further deepens and enriches the existing research.Main conclusions are as follows:Under direct ownership,the U-shaped relationship only exists between the largest shareholder's ownership and Tobin's Q,as well as between the Top 10 shareholders' ownership and ROA.Managerial ownership seems to have no significant influence on corporate performance.Under ultimate ownership,cash flow right and voting right seem to have no significant impact on corporate performance.However,there shows a significant inverse U-shaped relationship between the separation of the two rights and corporate performance.After using instrumental variables,the relationship between ownership structure and corporate performance turns to be no longer stable.The inverted U-shaped relationship of the separation and firm performance only establishes in areas with poor institutional environment.There exists possible endogeneity of ownership structure.The main implications are:(1)As ultimate controller of SOEs,the government should guide the reform not only by holding cash flow right,but also by the way of controlling,and make the separation in a reasonable range.(2)The largest shareholder cannot reflect the complete impact of ownership structure on corporate performance;the reform should take other large shareholders into account,especially the ultimate controller.(3)Currently managerial ownership in SOEs is too low to motivate managers.The reform in the new period should strengthen the managerial equity incentive.(4)The reform of SOEs in the new period should consider regional differences in the institutional environment: the government should give more autonomy to SOEs in areas with good institutional environment,and provide more guidance in areas with poor institutional environment.