Political connection and firm performance: evidence from Chinese state-owned companies

Abstract

This paper uses the multiple regression to research the political connection effect in the state-owned enterprise. It has been found that the political connection can significantly enhance state-owned enterprises’ performance. Moreover, the same administration level between state-owned enterprises’ actual controller and CEO/Chairman would enhance ROA and ROE. Additionally, as the proportion of political connection members increases, the ROA will be promoted. The political connection has same impact on the industries with more governmental control and the industries with less governmental control. The “city administration level” shows negative record in the stock market. Furthermore, this paper adopts the Probit Model to test the impact of life cycle stage on the political connection establishment. According to the finding, the political connection is set up in almost each stage.