Research On The Reason Why Zombie Enterprises Are "Stiff But Deathless"

The problem of zombie enterprises has been widely concerned by the society.It is of great theoretical and practical significance to find out the reasons why zombie enterprises are "stiff but deathless".A zombie enterprise is an inefficient enterprise that,despite its lack of sustained profitability,is still operating without exiting the market.The existence of zombie enterprises will seriously distort the allocation of resources,squeeze out the investment of healthy enterprises,lower the productivity level of the industry,and seriously endanger the economic development of a country.Since zombie enterprises will cause huge negative harm to the national economy,why are they still able to continue to survive and do not exit from the market in time?Based on the social exchange theory,this paper analyzes the reasons why zombie enterprises are �stiff but deathless� from the perspective of government intervention,and selects 22,062 observation data from 3,374 companies listed in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares in 2009-2017 as research samples to conduct empirical research.The empirical results of this paper show that the government's direct subsidies to zombie companies and the indirect credit support through banks are the reasons why these zombie companies can survive for a long time.Further research shows that both government support(government grants and bank loans)failed to improve the performance of zombie companies.Therefore,we put forward several ideas for dealing with the problem of zombie enterprises,including(1)accelerating the reform of the political achievements appraisal system,weakening the role of GDP growth rate indicator;(2)improving the pertinence and use efficiency of government subsidies,and leading more government subsidies to R&D companies and emerging industries;(3)reducing government intervention in credit funds and letting the market decide the allocation of financial resources.