Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.4, 2020

The Appropriate Structure of Ownership: Theoretical Analysis, Inference and Empirical Facts

(Abstract)

Yang Chunxue and Yang Xinming

Adhering to “two unshakable points” is the basic national policy for the reform of ownership. This national policy and the basic socialist economic system itself imply a dynamic concept of the appropriate structure of ownership. It is an important task for socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics to provide an academic theoretical basis for this conception. In pure theory, it is a question of the optimum of ownership structure, which is under the constraint conditions after the difference in objective functions between public enterprises and non-public enterprises is introduced into the model. Of course, if the constraints vary with the development stage and social system, there will be different appropriate structures. In socialist China, public owned enterprises are naturally given the goal of maximizing social welfare; they are not only a tool to remedy market failure, but also an important basis for the development of the whole social economy. The practice of “focused on public ownership accompanied with the common development of the multiple ownership economy” reveals the dynamic mechanism of competition, cooperation and integration between public enterprises and non-public enterprises.