Competing with Leviathan: Law and government ownership in China’s public-private partnership market

Despite years of economic reform, government-owned enterprises (GOEs) continue to be prevalent in certain sectors of China’s economy. Drawing on empirical evidence from China’s public-private partnership (PPP) market, this article empirically tests whether the theory of the ownership of enterprise can explain the distribution of GOEs in China. It first conducts an empirical study on the disclosed judgments of Chinese courts to show that the enforcement of PPP contracts remains relatively weak in China, which gives rise to the concern of government opportunism. It then presents empirical evidence that the level of government ownership in each project correlates with the chances of government opportunism, which can be measured by project duration, project sector, and renegotiation terms in the contract. These findings show that the level of government ownership is affected by two competing forces—ownership costs and transaction costs. While GOEs incur relatively high ownership costs, they generally incur lower transaction costs because they can curb government opportunism and thus can outcompete private firms in some projects.