3. M&A Waves in China: A Survey from the Government Behavior Perspective

Data source:Zheng Shiyin et al. Central SOE local investments increase 42 times in years [N/OL]. Yicai (China Business News Daily), 2012-03-07 [2014-04-06]. http://​finance.​sina.​com.​cn/​china/​dfjj/​20120307/​010711528331.​shtml

This assumption is in line with reality. First of all, according to the requirements of the SASAC, the number of central SOEs will be reduced to 80–100 in the future, and 30–50 of them will develop into large internationally competitive enterprise groups. Therefore, the central SOEs must grow and strengthen themselves by merging with local enterprises to avoid being annexed by other central enterprises during the reorganization process. Secondly, since the reform of SOEs, the performance of the central SOEs has significantly improved, a large amount of funds have been accumulated, and it is easier for the central SOEs to obtain credit support from banks. In addition, after the financial crisis in 2008, the government has increased investment and most of these investments are made through the central SOEs, so it can be said that the central SOEs will not have the problem of money in the acquisition of local SOEs.

The important role of infrastructure construction in output growth has been confirmed by Démurger (2001), Fan and Zhang (2004), and Fan Jiuli, Bai Baili, and Pan Quan (2004).

The infrastructure expenditure here is a concept of stock, but in the following analysis, to simplify, we use the infrastructure expenditure on the concept of flow. This is also consistent with the general literature, such as Qian and Roland (1998).

The purpose of local governments competing for investment from central enterprises is also to develop the local economy so that the local governments will be in a favorable position in the assessment of their political performance.

The first criterion is based on the information published in the annual report of the listed company, and the second criterion is based on the calculation of the company’s equity control chain. The actual controller information published in the annual report is not complete, and many companies confuse the concepts of controlling shareholders and actual controllers, and take the controlling shareholders as actual controllers, which is not conducive to our judgment of the nature of listed companies. The actual controller based on the calculation according to the company’s equity control chain is closer to the concept of the ultimate controller, which also makes it easier for us to classify listed companies.

The code of this type of actual controller in the CSMAR database is 2100, and they are generally the SASAC of the State Council or a central government department.

Because the distance between a region and itself is 0, the principal diagonal elements of the matrix are all 0.

The element \( {\overline{f}}_1 \) in \( {\overline{F}}_n \) represents the weighted average FDI level of other regions except region i, which corresponds to region i.

The squaring is to avoid negative values in the resulting matrix.

Its official website:http://​www.​chinahighway.​gov.​cn/​roadInfo/​index.​do

The year corresponding to the sample company refers to the year when the original sample transfers the control rights or the year when the original sample corresponding to the reference sample has conducted control rights transfer.