During transition, maintaining employment and providing a social safety net to the unemployed are important to social stability, which in turn is crucial for the productivity of the whole economy. Because independent institutions for social safety are lacking and firms with strong profit...

In the hierarchy of China's state sector, both before and during the current reform period, government bureaucrats select and supervise state-owned enterprise (SOE) managers. The incentive problem of SOE managers has been studied carefully, but that of the bureaucrats has not. This paper uses a...

A substantial body of literature has documented impressive total factor productivity (TFP) growth in China's state owned enterprises (SOEs) during the period of China's enterprise reform. Such growth rates have been used to support the view that China's reforms of SOEs have been highly...