The growing global presence of China’s state-owned enterprise (SOEs) has captured much of the world’s attention. Continuous waves of SOEs’ overseas ventures, a result of government-led transnationalization officially dubbed the “Going Out” strategy, have generated great uneasiness in international relations. This dissertation, The Politics of China’s “Going Out” Strategy: Overseas Expansion of Central State-owned Enterprises, seeks to answer the following question: how the Chinese central state and central SOEs interact with one another as the “Going Out” strategy has evolved. This dissertation finds that the transnationalization of SOEs is by no means a coherent policy but rather is fraught with power struggle, with various bureaucratic agencies setting different goals for SOEs on the one hand and with SOEs managers defending corporate interests without incurring political setbacks on the other. The state’s advocacy of the overseas expansion of SOEs was aimed at achieving national economic and security goals, but SOEs, with their expanded autonomy gained from the new state-market relationship, have been able to ignore state directives that were detrimental to firms’ financial performance. This dissertation also finds that negotiation and bargaining between China’s fragmented bureaucracy and SOE managers over the terms of firms’ “going out” grow more intense as corporate autonomy become increasingly institutionalized with the progress of reform. Over time, SOEs’ overseas expansion reflected more the firms’ corporate strategy than the state’s policy objectives. / text

abstract: Based on multiple case studies of the transactions in China by private equity funds, this paper attempts to explore the value-creation capabilities of private equity funds at the transaction/deal level. Previous studies on financial performance of PE funds utilized data collected from publically traded companies in European/US markets. By measuring financial performance of both “pre- and post-transactions,” these studies researched two questions: 1) Do buyout funds create value? 2) If they do, what are the sources of value creation? In general, studies conclude that private equity/buyout funds do create value at both the deal level and investor level. They also identified four possible sources of such value creation: 1) undervaluation, 2) leverage effect, 3) better governance, and 4) operational improvement. However, relatively little is known about the process of value creation. In this study, I attempt to fill that gap, revealing the “secret recipe” of value creation. By carefully looking into the process of value creation, this study suggests five propositions covering capabilities at 1) deal selection/screening, 2) deal structuring, 3) operational improvement, 4) investment exit, and 5) Top Management Team (TMT). These capabilities at private equity/buyout funds are critical factors for value creation. In a thorough review of the value-creation process, this paper hopes to: 1) Share real-life experiences and lessons learned on private equity transactions in China as a developing economy. 2) Reveal the process of deal/transaction to observe measures taken place within deal/transaction for value creation. 3) Show how well-executed strategies and capabilities in deal selection/screening, deal structuring, operational improvement, and investment exit can still create value for private equity firms without financial leverage. 4) Share the experience of State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) reform participated in by private equity firms in China. This could provide valuable information for policy makers in China. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2016

This thesis uses data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) from 1991 to 2004 to estimate the short-term effects of parental unemployment on children's health through exogenous shocks from state-owned enterprise reforms at the end of the last century by employing fixed effects and instrumental variables methods. Findings show that parental unemployment decreases children's weight z-scores and reduces the frequency with which children have been ill or hurt in the past month. It also significantly affects children's nutrient intake over the past three days, particularly evident in low-income families and adolescent groups.

This thesis examines China's state-owned enterprise reform and financial reform in the last two decades. I characterize the progress of China's state-owned enterprises reform in two areas: privatization of small SOEs and mass layoffs. I argue that privatization rests on the political economy of China. I also discuss the evolution of the financial system and come up with some strategies of financial liberalization in China. Result from this study suggests that if the necessary reforms of the financial sector and state enterprises are effectively carried out, inevitably this will lead to a significantly slower rate of growth for a period of time. However, these reforms will provide the basis for a period of sustained growth in the long run.