市县数量、市场化进程与资本流动OACHSSCD

After more than 40 years of reform practices,China has made significant progress in advancing marketization.However,the task of market-oriented reform remains incomplete,as government intervention and local protectionism still persist.An important issue that urgently needs to be addressed is how to better leverage the role of the market,reduce government intervention,and promote an effective combination of an efficient market and a proactive government.Capital,as an important factor endowment alongside goods,land,and labor,should flow freely in line with the need to build a unified national market.Nevertheless,from the perspective of regional marketization progress,such free flow may not necessarily be beneficial.If a region is subject to greater government intervention,lower marketization levels,and a poorer business environment,it may experience net capital outflows,which could adversely affect local economic development.By integrating the administrative divisions at the county and prefectural levels and introduces the concept of excess cities and counties and explores the impact of an excessive number of administrative divisions on cross-regional capital flows.This study holds significant theoretical and practical implications for continuously advancing the marketization process and deepening market-oriented reforms. From the perspective of administrative divisions,this paper examines the impact of the excess cities and counties on firms' cross-region investment.First,it constructs a prediction model for the number of prefectural-level cities and counties at the provincial level in China and uses it to estimate the number of excess prefectural-level cities and excess counties in each province.Then,using firm-level data from 2008 to 2021,an empirical test is conducted to assess the impact of the excessive cities and counties on the proportion of cross-region subsidiaries established by enterprises.The findings reveal that a greater number of the excessive cities and counties in a province significantly increases the proportion of cross-region subsidiaries established by listed companies.These results remain robust after a series of tests,including instrumental variable methods and alternative measures of key variables.Heterogeneity analysis further indicates that these effects are more pronounced in competitive industries and regions with high market segmentation.Mechanism tests show that the excessive cities and counties exacerbate government intervention,increase business operating costs,compress market demand,and hinder technological acquisition,thereby impeding marketization progress and deteriorating the local business environment.Further analysis reveals that listed companies in regions with more excessive cities and counties tend to establish their cross-region subsidiaries in regions with fewer excessive cities and counties. The potential contributions of this paper are threefold:First,it enriches the literature on the economic consequences of administrative division adjustment.By focusing on the number of prefectural-level cities and counties and their impact on corporate cross-regional investment behavior,this study adds to the existing research on the economic effects of administrative divisions and provides strong support for city-county consolidation.Second,it expands the research on cross-regional capital flows.Existing studies on the determinants of cross-regional capital flows primarily focus on geographical distance,social networks,and administrative boundaries.This paper extends the analysis to the field of administrative divisions.Third,it broadens and supplements the research on government intervention and market-oriented reforms.Previous studies have paid relatively little attention to the role of administrative divisions in marketization progress and government intervention.The results of this study demonstrate that the number of cities and counties has a direct impact on regional marketization and government intervention,confirming the importance of administrative divisions in advancing regional marketization.This provides valuable insights for continuously deepening market-oriented reforms,promoting a better combination of an efficient market and a proactive government,and building a high-level socialist market economy.