Deregulation of Market Access and De-capacity of Supply Side：A Quasi-natural Experiment Based on the Negative List System Pilot

Abstract

Most of the existing literature focuses on the measurement, causes and economic consequences of overcapacity, with little attention paid to how to cut capacity and its effects. Using the DID research method, this paper explores the impact of negative list for market access on overcapacity from the supply side of the real economy reform. The results show that: （1）Compared with companies which are not affected by the negative list system pilot, companies affected by the negative list system pilot have significantly lower excess capacity, and the conclusion is still robust after the balance trend test, PSM test, independent variable replacement test, falsification test etc.（2）Channel testing shows that the implementation of the negative list for market access mainly reduces the overcapacity of companies by optimizing the allocation of production factors and the business environment, streamlining administration, delegating power, and giving the market a bigger role play in allocating resources and promoting competition.（3）Further analysis shows that the effect of the negative list system on companies’ excess capacity is mainly reflected in low total factor productivity, high degree of excess capacity, pollution industry and large-scale groups.This paper may have the following contributions: （1）It enriches the empirical research in the field of capacity. The existing literature pays more attention to the measurement of overcapacity from the demand side（Han, et al., 2011; Zhang and Jiang, 2017; Yu, et al., 2018）, and causes and economic consequences（Lin, et al., 2010; Jiang, et al., 2012; Yu and Lu, 2015）. There is still a lack of literature on how to eliminate capacity and whether the relevant policies achieve the effect of eliminating capacity from supply-side reform. From the perspective of the supply-side reform of the real economy, this paper for the first time discusses the impact of market access deregulation on excess capacity.（2）As for the measurement of excess capacity, the existing literature commonly uses the peak method, production function method, cost function method and data envelopment analysis method to measure the capacity utilization rate（Klein and Summers, 1966; Garofalo and Malhotra, 1997; Shen, 1999; Sun, et al., 2009）. However, some variables and data are difficult to obtain for listed companies using those methods. This paper uses the stochastic frontier model to estimate the stock level of excess capacity（Aretz and Pope, 2018）, which can solve the above problems better.（3）To the current knowledge of us, this paper fills the gap in the research field of the negative list system and excess capacity of listed companies, which enriches the relevant literature on the implementation effect of the market negative list system from the perspective of supply side.