TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bayoumi, Tamim
AU  - Tong, Hui
AU  - Wei, Shang-Jin
TI  - The Chinese Corporate Savings Puzzle:  A Firm-level Cross-country Perspective
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 16432
PY  - 2010
Y2  - October 2010
DO  - 10.3386/w16432
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16432
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16432.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Tamim Bayoumi
International Monetary Fund
700 19th Street NW
Washington, DC 20431
E-Mail: tbayoumi@imf.org

Hui Tong
IMF Washington DC
700 19th Street N.W.
Washington, DC 20431
E-Mail: htong@imf.org

Shang-Jin Wei
Graduate School of Business
Columbia University
Uris Hall 619
3022 Broadway
New York, NY 10027-6902
Tel: 212/854-9139
E-Mail: shangjin.wei@columbia.edu
M1  - published as Tamim Bayoumi, Hui Tong, Shang-Jin Wei. "The Chinese Corporate Savings Puzzle: A Firm-level Cross-Country Perspective," in Joseph P. H. Fan and Randall Morck, editors, "Capitalizing China" University of Chicago Press (2013)

AB  - China's high corporate savings rate is commonly claimed to be a key driver for the country's large current account surplus. The mainstream explanation for high corporate savings is a combination of windfall profits in state-owned firms, especially in resource sectors, and mis-governance of state-owned firms represented by their low dividend payout. The paper casts doubt on these views by comparing the savings of 1557 Chinese listed firms with those of 29330 listed firms from 51 other countries over 2002 to 2007. First, Chinese firms do not have a significantly higher savings rate (as a share of total assets) than the global average because corporations in most countries have a high savings rate. The rising corporate savings rate is also consistent with a global trend. Second, there is no significant difference in the savings behavior and dividend patterns between Chinese majority state-owned and private listed firms, contrary to the received wisdom.
ER  -