Key industrial policy, market competition and firms’ markup: Evidence from China

The relationship between the government and the market has long been a core issue in economics. This study analyzes key industrial policy information in the “Five-Year Plan” of the Chinese central government. We use data from the Annual Survey of Industrial Firms to test the impact and mechanisms of key industrial policies on markups, and further analyze these findings. The empirical results demonstrate that key industrial policies significantly reduce firms’ markups, and this conclusion remains robust across different tests. Additionally, the mechanism by which key industrial policy reduces firms’ markups is primarily through the “transaction cost channel,” the “factor resource cost channel” and “market competition effect.” For different types of firms, industrial policies have heterogeneous effects on markups, with key industrial policies having noticeable asymmetric effects on firms occupying different positions in the market. Our findings provide further insights into the interaction mechanisms between the government and the market.政府与市场的关系长期以来都是经济学领域的核心议题。本研究聚焦中国中央政府五年规划(Five-Year Plan)中的重点产业政策信息展开分析，采用中国工业企业年度调查数据，检验重点产业政策对企业加成率(markups)的影响与作用机制，并对研究结论展开进一步剖析。实证结果表明，重点产业政策能够显著降低企业的加成率，且该结论在多项稳健性检验中均保持成立。进一步而言，重点产业政策降低企业加成率的作用机制主要涵盖“交易成本渠道”“要素资源成本渠道”与“市场竞争效应”。针对不同类型的企业，产业政策对加成率的影响存在异质性，重点产业政策对处于不同市场地位的企业具有显著的非对称影响。本研究结论为深入理解政府与市场的互动机制提供了新的学术视角。