IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/dp2002-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

From the Grabbing Hand to the Helping Hand: A Rent Seeking Model of China's Township-Village Enterprises

Author

Listed:
  • Jiahua Che

Abstract

I present a study of ownership of firms under government rent seeking. Using its control of regulated inputs, a government agency extracts rents from a manager who undertakes an investment. Such a government rent seeking activity leads to a typical hold-up problem. Government ownership is shown to serve as a second best commitment mechanism through which the government agency will restrain itself from the rent seeking activity and even offer the manager support and favor such as tax breaks and subsidies.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiahua Che, 2002. "From the Grabbing Hand to the Helping Hand: A Rent Seeking Model of China's Township-Village Enterprises," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2002-13, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:dp2002-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/dp2002-13.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1990. "Property Rights and the Nature of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1119-1158, December.
    2. Chen, Hongyi & Rozelle, Scott, 1999. "Leaders, managers, and the organization of township and village enterprises in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 529-557, December.
    3. In-Koo Cho & David M. Kreps, 1987. "Signaling Games and Stable Equilibria," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(2), pages 179-221.
    4. Daniel M. Berkowitz & Wei Li, 1997. "Decentralizing in Transition Economies: A Tragedy of the Commons?," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 45, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    5. Frye, Timothy & Shleifer, Andrei, 1997. "The Invisible Hand and the Grabbing Hand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 354-358, May.
    6. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1997. "A Theory of Misgovernance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1289-1332.
    7. Chang Chun & Wang Yijiang, 1994. "The Nature of the Township-Village Enterprise," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 434-452, December.
    8. Hsiao, Cheng & Nugent, Jeffrey & Perrigne, Isabelle & Qiu, Jicheng, 1998. "Shares versus Residual Claimant Contracts: The Case of Chinese TVEs," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 317-337, June.
    9. Dong, Xiao-yuan, 1998. "Employment and Wage Determination in China's Rural Industry: Investigation Using 1984-1990 Panel Data," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 485-501, September.
    10. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1986. "The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 691-719, August.
    11. Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1994. "Politicians and Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 995-1025.
    12. Naughton, Barry, 1994. "Chinese Institutional Innovation and Privatization from Below," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 266-270, May.
    13. Jiahua Che & Yingyi Qian, 1998. "Insecure Property Rights and Government Ownership of Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(2), pages 467-496.
    14. Tian, Guoqiang, 2000. "Property Rights and the Nature of Chinese Collective Enterprises," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 247-268, June.
    15. Hehui Jin & Yingyi Qian, 1998. "Public Versus Private Ownership of Firms: Evidence from Rural China," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 773-808.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alexandre De Podestá Gomes, 2018. "The mainstream economics interpretation of the local state and central-local relations in Post-Mao China: a critical review," Working Papers 214, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    2. Sun, Laixiang, 2002. "Fading out of local government ownership: recent ownership reform in China's township and village enterprises," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 249-269, September.

    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. Che, Jiahua, 2002. "Rent Seeking and Government Ownership of Firms: An Application to China's Township-Village Enterprises," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 787-811, December.
    2. Jiahua Che, 2000. "From the Grabbing Hand to the Helping Hand," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 58, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    3. Jiahua Che, 2003. "The Life Cycle of Government Ownership," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2003-627, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    4. Lu, Jiangyong & Tao, Zhigang & Yang, Zhi, 2010. "The costs and benefits of government control: Evidence from China's collectively-owned enterprises," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 282-292, June.
    5. Ito, Junichi, 2006. "Economic and institutional reform packages and their impact on productivity: A case study of Chinese township and village enterprises," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 167-190, March.
    6. Hongbin Li & Lingsheng Meng & Junsen Zhang, 2005. "Why Do Entrepreneurs Enter Politics?," Discussion Papers 00009, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Department of Economics.
    7. Jiahua Che & Yingyi Qian, "undated". "Insecure Property Rights and Government Ownership of Firms," Working Papers 97050, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
    8. Boudewijn Bouckaert, 2007. "Bureaupreneurs in China: we did it our way," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 169-195, April.
    9. Kung, James Kai-sing & Lin, Yi-min, 2007. "The Decline of Township-and-Village Enterprises in China's Economic Transition," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 569-584, April.
    10. Cull, Robert & Xu, Lixin Colin & Yang, Xi & Zhou, Li-An & Zhu, Tian, 2017. "Market facilitation by local government and firm efficiency: Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 460-480.
    11. Loren Brandt & Hongbin Li & Joanne Roberts, 2001. "Why do Governments Privatize," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 429, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    12. Djankov, Simeon & Glaeser, Edward & La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "The new comparative economics," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 595-619, December.
    13. Tetsushi Sonobe & Keijiro Otsuka, 2004. "Productivity Effects of TVE Privatization: The Case Study of Garment and Metal-Casting Enterprises in the Greater Yangtze River Region," NBER Chapters, in: Governance, Regulation, and Privatization in the Asia-Pacific Region, pages 231-247, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Lihui Tian & Saul Estrin, 2005. "Retained State Shareholding in Chinese PLCs: Does Government Ownership Reduce Corporate Value?," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp750, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    15. Yingyi Qian, 1999. "The Institutional Foundations of China's Market Transition," Working Papers 99011, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
    16. Che, Jiahua & Qian, Yingyi, 1998. "Institutional Environment, Community Government, and Corporate Governance: Understanding China's Township-Village Enterprises," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 1-23, April.
    17. Tian, Guoqiang, 2000. "Property Rights and the Nature of Chinese Collective Enterprises," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 247-268, June.
    18. Hehui Jin & Yingyi Qian, "undated". "Public vs. Private Ownership of Firms: Evidence from Rural China," Working Papers 97047, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
    19. Atif Mian, 2008. "Incentives in Markets, Firms, and Governments," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 24(2), pages 273-306, October.
    20. Li, Hongbin, 2003. "Government's budget constraint, competition, and privatization: evidence from China's rural industry," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 486-502, September.

    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:unu:wpaper:dp2002-13. 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: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.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.