While the enterprise reform in China has provided incentives to its state-owned enterprises (SOEs), their poor performance relative to other forms of enterprises remains puzzling. This paper provides an answer to this puzzle by studying optimal managerial decisions under the enterprise reform.

The usual belief is that the China's state enterprise reform with contract management responsibility system has led state-owned enterprises to maximize profit. Nonetheless the poor performance of state-owned enterprises after the reform relative to other forms of enterprises remains a puzzle. As...