Institutional Constraints and Feasible Reform for State-owned Enterprises in China

Efforts to transform the Chinese economy will have decisive ramifications for global prosperity, and the success of these efforts rely largely on the reform of State-owned Enterprises (SOEs). The existing literature on the Chinese SOE reform program neglected various critical institutional features of SOEs. This paper seeks to remedy this defect by describing the characteristics of SOEs in China, providing a synoptic description of the evolution of SOE reform, evaluating the magnitude of the impact of the SOE reform program, exploring key problems in Chinese SOE reform, and offering some policy suggestions for enhancing the process of reform.