Productivity performance in Chinese business groups: the positive and negative impacts of business group affiliation

This paper considers evidence on business group productivity performance in China. It also carries out a detailed investigation into China's 50 largest groups to see if pyramidal groups are forming. As such, we further explore what can be considered as some of the positive and negative attributes of Chinese groups. We show that although improvements in productivity have taken place, some Chinese business groups are also taking the first steps towards developing pyramidal structures. This could have important implications for longer-term productivity growth in China's business groups.