IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/16432.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Chinese Corporate Savings Puzzle: A Firm-level Cross-country Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Tamim Bayoumi
  • Hui Tong
  • Shang-Jin Wei

Abstract

China's high corporate savings rate is commonly claimed to be a key driver for the country's large current account surplus. The mainstream explanation for high corporate savings is a combination of windfall profits in state-owned firms, especially in resource sectors, and mis-governance of state-owned firms represented by their low dividend payout. The paper casts doubt on these views by comparing the savings of 1557 Chinese listed firms with those of 29330 listed firms from 51 other countries over 2002 to 2007. First, Chinese firms do not have a significantly higher savings rate (as a share of total assets) than the global average because corporations in most countries have a high savings rate. The rising corporate savings rate is also consistent with a global trend. Second, there is no significant difference in the savings behavior and dividend patterns between Chinese majority state-owned and private listed firms, contrary to the received wisdom.

Suggested Citation

  • Tamim Bayoumi & Hui Tong & Shang-Jin Wei, 2010. "The Chinese Corporate Savings Puzzle: A Firm-level Cross-country Perspective," NBER Working Papers 16432, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16432
    Note: IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16432.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2001. "Disappearing Dividends: Changing Firm Characteristics Or Lower Propensity To Pay?," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 14(1), pages 67-79, March.
    2. Wurgler, Jeffrey, 2000. "Financial markets and the allocation of capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 187-214.
    3. Fan, Joseph P.H. & Wong, T.J. & Zhang, Tianyu, 2007. "Politically connected CEOs, corporate governance, and Post-IPO performance of China's newly partially privatized firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 330-357, May.
    4. Thomas W. Bates & Kathleen M. Kahle & René M. Stulz, 2009. "Why Do U.S. Firms Hold So Much More Cash than They Used To?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 1985-2021, October.
    5. Rajan, Raghuram G & Zingales, Luigi, 1998. "Financial Dependence and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 559-586, June.
    6. Shang-Jin Wei & Xiaobo Zhang, 2011. "The Competitive Saving Motive: Evidence from Rising Sex Ratios and Savings Rates in China," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(3), pages 511-564.
    7. Art Durnev & Randall Morck & Bernard Yeung, 2004. "Value-Enhancing Capital Budgeting and Firm-specific Stock Return Variation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(1), pages 65-105, February.
    8. Hui Tong & Shang-Jin Wei, 2011. "The Composition Matters: Capital Inflows and Liquidity Crunch During a Global Economic Crisis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(6), pages 2023-2052.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joel Peress & jim goldman, 2016. "Firm Innovation and Financial Analysis: How Do They Interact?," 2016 Meeting Papers 531, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. Yang, Bao & Chou, Hsin-I. & Zhao, Jing, 2020. "Innovation or dividend payout: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 180-203.
    3. Almeida, Heitor & Campello, Murillo & Weisbach, Michael S., 2011. "Corporate financial and investment policies when future financing is not frictionless," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 675-693, June.
    4. Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirguc‐Kunt & Luc Laeven & Ross Levine, 2008. "Finance, Firm Size, and Growth," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(7), pages 1379-1405, October.
    5. Art Durnev & Sergei Guriev, 2007. "The Resource Curse: A Corporate Transparency Channel," Working Papers w0108, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    6. Bill Francis & Eric Ofori, 2015. "Political regimes and stock market development," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 5(1), pages 111-137, June.
    7. Bennett, Benjamin & Stulz, René & Wang, Zexi, 2020. "Does the stock market make firms more productive?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 281-306.
    8. Wang, Qian & Wong, T.J. & Xia, Lijun, 2008. "State ownership, the institutional environment, and auditor choice: Evidence from China," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 112-134, September.
    9. Tong, Hui & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2021. "Endogenous corporate leverage response to a safer macro environment: The case of foreign exchange reserve accumulation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    10. Faccio, Mara & Morck, Randall & Deniz Yavuz, M., 2021. "Business groups and the incorporation of firm-specific shocks into stock prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(3), pages 852-871.
    11. Ogawa, Kazuo, 2015. "Firm investment, liquidity and bank health: A panel study of Asian firms in the 2000s," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 44-54.
    12. Ben-Nasr, Hamdi & Cosset, Jean-Claude, 2014. "State Ownership, Political Institutions, and Stock Price Informativeness: Evidence from Privatization," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 179-199.
    13. Wang, Baolian, 2019. "The cash conversion cycle spread," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(2), pages 472-497.
    14. Chen, Zhihong & Huang, Yuan & Kusnadi, Yuanto & John Wei, K.C., 2017. "The real effect of the initial enforcement of insider trading laws," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 687-709.
    15. Bernard Yeung & Lubomir Litov & Kose John, 2004. "Corporate Governance and Managerial Risk Taking: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 04-35, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    16. Bernard Yeung & Randall Morck & Daniel Wolfenzon, 2004. "Corporate Governance, Economic Entrenchment and Growth," Working Papers 04-21, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    17. McLean, R. David & Zhao, Mengxin, 2018. "Cash savings and capital markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 49-64.
    18. Gilberto Loureiro & Alvaro G. Taboada, 2013. "Do Improvements in the Information Environment Affect Real Investment Decisions?," NIPE Working Papers 20/2013, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    19. Ante Džidić Silvije Orsag, 2019. "Dividend Smoothing and Investor Protection," Zagreb International Review of Economics and Business, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, vol. 22(2), pages 55-70, November.
    20. Schwartzman, Felipe, 2014. "Time to produce and emerging market crises," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 37-52.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • F4 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16432. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.