The Rise of State-Connected Private Owners in China

We use administrative registration records with information on the owners of all Chinese firms to document their connections through equity investments. We show that the largest private owners have direct equity ties with state owners, the next largest private owners have equity ties with private owners that themselves have equity ties with state owners, and the smallest private owners do not have any ties with state owners. The network of “state-connected” private owners has expanded over the last two decades. The share of registered capital of “state-connected” private owners increased by almost 20 percentage points between 2000 and 2019.