Pilot free trade zones and Chinese port-listed companies performance: An empirical research based on quasi-natural experiment

Abstract

Liberalization of trade and facilitation of investment are deepened under the Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) policy, which have created unprecedented business opportunities for the port enterprises. As the core carrier of FTZs' cargo trade, what impact will FTZ policy have on port enterprises? However, the problem as to whether the FTZ policy is effective in promoting the development performance of port enterprises and its' impact mechanism remains unknown. Using the panel data of 16 port-listed companies in China during 2010–2016, this paper applies the Difference-in-Difference (DID) method to explore how FTZ policy affects the development performance of Port-listed companies in FTZs. The estimation shows that the policy scheme is related to the sustained growth of development performance of port-listed companies. In the research of influencing mechanism, FTZs have significant positive promoting effects on the scale, labor productivity and management efficiency of port-listed companies. In addition, with the passage of time, the influence of FTZs on port-listed companies has been increasing. The results show that the port-listed companies make full use of the high-quality resources such as capital, management and talents gathered in FTZs, and achieve their own long-term and rapid development by improving the productivity, management and expanding the scale of port enterprises. Finally, we find that FTZs has different promotion effects on the performances of port-listed companies in different regions and port city scales, which shows that regional and port city scales differences are also the factors affecting FTZ's promotion on port-listed companies. Our findings not only deepen the understanding of FTZs' role in promoting the performance growth of Chinese port-listed companies, but also provide enlightenment for port enterprises to seize opportunities and enhance their own development.