IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecanpo/v85y2025icp2234-2246.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fair competition and investment behavior of foreign-invested firms—Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China

Author

Listed:
  • Huang, Xiaodi
  • Chen, Xiaoxiong
  • Liang, Zuming
  • Wu, Hongjie
  • Kang, Siyang

Abstract

This study systematically investigates the effect of fair competition on the investment of foreign-invested firms by utilizing China's Fair Competition Review System in 2016 as an exogenous shock. Particularly, we run a triple-difference regression based on the type and location of firms. The findings demonstrate that the improvement of fair competition significantly increases fixed asset investment in foreign-invested firms relative to domestic firms, particularly in firms with strong financial constraints, high operational uncertainty, high capital intensity and in regions with low financial development and high economic policy uncertainty. Further mechanism tests show that fair competition significantly promotes foreign-invested firms’ access to bank credit and reduces their perceived uncertainty, thus increasing investment, compared to domestic firms. In addition, labor employment, total factor productivity, operating income and R&D investment of foreign-invested firms have also significantly increased. Overall, our evidence highlights the active role of fair competition in promoting foreign-invested firms’ investment compared to domestic firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Huang, Xiaodi & Chen, Xiaoxiong & Liang, Zuming & Wu, Hongjie & Kang, Siyang, 2025. "Fair competition and investment behavior of foreign-invested firms—Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 2234-2246.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:85:y:2025:i:c:p:2234-2246
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2025.03.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0313592625000773
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eap.2025.03.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xu, Nuo & Gao, Yubin & Du, Lizhen & You, Liang, 2023. "Does administrative monopoly regulation affect corporate financialization? From the perspective of vertical industrial chain competition in China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    2. Jeremy Greenwood & Juan M. Sanchez & Cheng Wang, 2010. "Financing Development: The Role of Information Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1875-1891, September.
    3. Desbordes, Rodolphe & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2017. "The effects of financial development on foreign direct investment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 153-168.
    4. Biddle, Gary C. & Chan, Lilian H. & Joo, Jeong Hwan, 2024. "Clawback adoptions, managerial compensation incentives, capital investment mix and efficiency," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    5. Agbloyor, Elikplimi Komla & Abor, Joshua & Adjasi, Charles Komla Delali & Yawson, Alfred, 2013. "Exploring the causality links between financial markets and foreign direct investment in Africa," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 118-134.
    6. Paolo Buccirossi & Lorenzo Ciari & Tomaso Duso & Giancarlo Spagnolo & Cristiana Vitale, 2013. "Competition Policy and Productivity Growth: An Empirical Assessment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(4), pages 1324-1336, October.
    7. John (Jianqiu) Bai & Daniel Carvalho & Gordon M. Phillips, 2018. "The Impact of Bank Credit on Labor Reallocation and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(6), pages 2787-2836, December.
    8. Yi Huang & Marco Pagano & Ugo Panizza, 2020. "Local Crowding‐Out in China," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(6), pages 2855-2898, December.
    9. Denk, Nikola & Kaufmann, Lutz & Roesch, Jan-Frederik, 2012. "Liabilities of Foreignness Revisited: A Review of Contemporary Studies and Recommendations for Future Research," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 322-334.
    10. Jacobson, Louis S & LaLonde, Robert J & Sullivan, Daniel G, 1993. "Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 685-709, September.
    11. Im, Hyun Joong & Park, Young Joon & Shon, Janghoon, 2015. "Product market competition and the value of innovation: Evidence from US patent data," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 78-82.
    12. Naughton, Barry J., 2018. "The Chinese Economy: Adaptation and Growth, second edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262534797, December.
    13. Louis S. Jacobson & Robert J. LaLonde & Daniel G. Sullivan, 1993. "Long-term earnings losses of high-seniority displaced workers," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 17(Nov), pages 2-20.
    14. Jiang, Fuxiu & Kim, Kenneth A. & Nofsinger, John R. & Zhu, Bing, 2015. "Product market competition and corporate investment: Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 196-210.
    15. Botirjan Baltabaev, 2014. "Foreign Direct Investment and Total Factor Productivity Growth: New Macro-Evidence," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 311-334, February.
    16. Haw, In-Mu & Hu, Bingbing & Lee, Jay Junghun, 2015. "Product market competition and analyst forecasting activity: International evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 48-60.
    17. Zhang, Jin & Wang, Lanfang & Wang, Susheng, 2012. "Financial development and economic growth: Recent evidence from China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 393-412.
    18. Przemyslaw Kowalski & Max Büge & Monika Sztajerowska & Matias Egeland, 2013. "State-Owned Enterprises: Trade Effects and Policy Implications," OECD Trade Policy Papers 147, OECD Publishing.
    19. Yu, Jian & Shi, Xunpeng & Guo, Dongmei & Yang, Longjian, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and firm carbon emissions: Evidence using a China provincial EPU index," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    20. Blalock, Garrick & Gertler, Paul J. & Levine, David I., 2008. "Financial constraints on investment in an emerging market crisis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 568-591, April.
    21. Guedhami, Omrane & Pittman, Jeffrey A. & Saffar, Walid, 2009. "Auditor choice in privatized firms: Empirical evidence on the role of state and foreign owners," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2-3), pages 151-171, December.
    22. Fang, Jing & Collins, Alan & Yao, Shujie, 2021. "On the global COVID-19 pandemic and China’s FDI," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    23. Navina Lucke & Stefan Eichler, 2016. "Foreign direct investment: the role of institutional and cultural determinants," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(11), pages 935-956, March.
    24. Utpal Bhattacharya & Neal Galpin & Bruce Haslem, 2007. "The Home Court Advantage in International Corporate Litigation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(4), pages 625-660.
    25. Likitwongkajon, Napaporn & Vithessonthi, Chaiporn, 2020. "Do foreign investments increase firm value and firm performance? Evidence from Japan," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    26. John Gallemore & Martin Jacob, 2020. "Corporate Tax Enforcement Externalities and the Banking Sector," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(5), pages 1117-1159, December.
    27. Li, Shuqi & Xu, Nuo, 2024. "Fair Competition Review System and cross-regional capital flow: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    28. Akdoğu, Evrim & MacKay, Peter, 2008. "Investment and Competition," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(2), pages 299-330, June.
    29. Li, Zhengyang, 2024. "Antitrust and corporate strategic transformation: A legal perspective based on the fair competition review system," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    30. Cheng, Rui & Li, Jing & Wu, Ting, 2024. "Competition policy and labor income share: Evidence from the antitrust policy in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 966-977.
    31. Zhimin Dai & Lu Guo & Qin Luo, 2019. "Market concentration measurement, administrative monopoly effect and efficiency improvement: empirical data from China civil aviation industry 2001-2015," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(34), pages 3758-3769, July.
    32. Charles J. Hadlock & Joshua R. Pierce, 2010. "New Evidence on Measuring Financial Constraints: Moving Beyond the KZ Index," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(5), pages 1909-1940.
    33. Hsu, Wen-Tai & Lu, Yi & Luo, Xuan & Zhu, Lianming, 2023. "Foreign direct investment and industrial agglomeration: Evidence from China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 610-639.
    34. Changqi Wu & Zhicheng Liu, 2012. "A Tiger Without Teeth? Regulation of Administrative Monopoly Under China’s Anti-Monopoly Law," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 41(1), pages 133-155, August.
    35. Zhao, Liange & Wang, Dongmei & Wang, Xueyuan & Zhang, Zhijian, 2023. "Impact of green finance on total factor productivity of heavily polluting enterprises: Evidence from green finance reform and innovation pilot zone," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 765-785.
    36. Xiao, Zumian & Wang, Shuhan & Zhang, Yepeng & Si, Deng-Kui, 2023. "Power of competition: Unraveling the impact of China's fair competition review system implementation on firm innovation," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1561-1581.
    37. Li, Jing & Nie, Huihua & Ruan, Rui & Shen, Xinyi, 2024. "Subjective perception of economic policy uncertainty and corporate social responsibility: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    38. Brandon Julio & Youngsuk Yook, 2012. "Political Uncertainty and Corporate Investment Cycles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(1), pages 45-84, February.
    39. Huseyin Gulen & Mihai Ion, 2016. "Editor's Choice Policy Uncertainty and Corporate Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(3), pages 523-564.
    40. Yang, Xingquan & Zhang, Kexin & Liao, Guanmin & Gao, Pengfei, 2024. "Administrative monopoly and state-owned enterprise innovation: Evidence from the fair competition review system in China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PB).
    41. Zhao, Yujie & Zhang, Zixuan & Zhang, Boyuan & Sun, Haixia, 2024. "Does administrative monopoly regulation affect cross-regional resource allocation?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    42. Xu, Jian & Liu, Yu & Abdoh, Hussein, 2022. "Foreign ownership and productivity," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 624-642.
    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. Li, Shuqi & Xu, Nuo, 2024. "Fair Competition Review System and cross-regional capital flow: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    2. Ren, Yangqiu & Hu, Guoliu & Wan, Qing, 2025. "Can fair competition enhance corporate ESG performance? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of China's fair competition review system," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    3. Zhang, Jingxue & Yu, Shiwei & Zhang, Yue-Jun & Su, Bin & Sun, Ya-Fang, 2025. "How do renewable energy policies affect energy green development? Evidence from Chinese listed energy firms," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    4. Ma, Huanyu & Hao, Dapeng, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty, financial development, and financial constraints: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 368-386.
    5. Chen, Juan & Liu, Chenyan & Jin, Daxiang & Xiao, Zuoping, 2025. "Impact of economic policy uncertainty on China's urban construction investment bond financing costs," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    6. Dai, Yixin & Wang, Yixiao & Li, Rongrong, 2024. "Overcoming the “diversification trap”:firm investment decisions and innovation under policy uncertainty," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 492-504.
    7. Xiangyuan Meng & Haoge Guo & Jie Li, 2023. "Economic policy uncertainty and corporate investment: evidence from China," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 56(6), pages 4491-4529, December.
    8. Yuegang Song & Songlin Jin & Zhenhui Li, 2022. "Venture Capital and Chinese Firms’ Technological Innovation Capability: Effective Evaluation and Mechanism Verification," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-20, August.
    9. Liu, Duan & Yu, Nizhou & Wan, Hong, 2022. "Does water rights trading affect corporate investment? The role of resource allocation and risk mitigation channels," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    10. Guo, Shu & Zhang, ZhongXiang, 2023. "Green credit policy and total factor productivity: Evidence from Chinese listed companies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    11. Zhou, Xi & Xiao, Min & Wu, Huiying & You, Jiaxing, 2024. "Does policy uncertainty travel across borders? Evidence from MNC subsidiary investment decisions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    12. Wang, Fengrong & Mbanyele, William & Muchenje, Linda, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty and stock liquidity: The mitigating effect of information disclosure," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    13. D'Mello, Ranjan & Toscano, Francesca, 2020. "Economic policy uncertainty and short-term financing: The case of trade credit," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    14. Yongkang Lin & Qinghua Song & Lingyun He, 2025. "Can the green finance reform and innovation pilot policy promote green technology innovation?—a novelty evidence from both polluting companies and city commercial banks in China," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 8403-8431, April.
    15. Cui, Xin & Wang, Chunfeng & Sensoy, Ahmet & Liao, Jing & Xie, Xiaochen, 2023. "Economic policy uncertainty and green innovation: Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    16. Almaghrabi, Khadija S., 2023. "Local product market competition and investment home bias," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    17. Lee, Chi-Chuan & Lee, Chien-Chiang & Xiao, Shunyi, 2021. "Policy-related risk and corporate financing behavior: Evidence from China’s listed companies," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 539-547.
    18. Fujitani, Ryosuke & Hattori, Masazumi & Yasuda, Yukihiro, 2023. "Domestic and international effects of economic policy uncertainty on corporate investment and strategic cash holdings: Evidence from Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    19. Tang, Chang & Xu, Yuanyuan & Hao, Yu & Wu, Haitao & Xue, Yan, 2021. "What is the role of telecommunications infrastructure construction in green technology innovation? A firm-level analysis for China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    20. Song, Jeongseop & Zhang, Fan, 2024. "Regional market uncertainty and corporate investment," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(PB).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fair competition; Investment; Foreign-invested firm; Triple-difference estimation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • M16 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - International Business Administration

    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:eee:ecanpo:v:85:y:2025:i:c:p:2234-2246. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/economic-analysis-and-policy .

    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.