Competition policy and enterprise competitiveness: Catalyst or barrier?

As a seminal institutional innovation within the framework of Chinese-style modern competition theory, the question of whether the Fair Competition Review System (FCRS) can harness policy dividends and bolster enterprise competitiveness stands as a pivotal concern for accelerating the emergence of new productive forces and fostering a harmonious integration of an "effective government + efficient market." Leveraging data from China's listed manufacturing enterprises spanning the period from 2010 to 2020, this paper undertakes an empirical examination of the impact of competition policy frameworks on the competitiveness of manufacturing enterprises. The FCRS is treated as a quasi-natural experiment, and a difference-in-differences (DID) methodology is employed for analysis.

The findings of this paper are as follows: (1) The implementation of the FCRS has been found to effectively augment the competitiveness of manufacturing enterprises by approximately 1.97 %, and this fundamental conclusion retains its validity after a battery of robustness tests; (2) The FCRS primarily influences enterprise competitiveness by lowering financing costs, enhancing technological innovation, and mitigating over-investment; (3) Heterogeneity analysis reveals that non-high-tech enterprises and those with lower financing constraints can attain more pronounced effects in promoting enterprise competitiveness through competition policies. Additionally, enterprise size and operational risks also exert an influence on the efficacy of competition policies in enhancing competitiveness; (4) Expanded analysis indicates that competition policies optimize the capital structure of enterprises through "debt reduction" and "capacity enhancement," thereby exploring the viability of analyzing the macro factors that impact enterprise "deleveraging" from the lens of competition policies. The research conclusions presented in this paper carry substantial guiding significance for the government in clarifying the preeminent role of market allocation of resources, promoting the establishment of a unified national market, and orchestrating a coherent fair competition system.