Identify Chinese State-Owned Enterprise using CSMAR
Many research papers on Chinese firms include a control variable that indicates if the firm is a state-owned enterprise (SOE). This is important as SOEs and non-SOEs differ in many aspects and may have structural differences. This post documents the way to construct this indicator variable from the CSMAR databases.
Specifically, we need the CSMAR China Listed Firms Shareholders - Controlling Shareholders dataset. On WRDS, this dataset is named hld_contrshr, located at /wrds/csmar/sasdata/hld.
Inside this dataset there’re a few variables identifying the ultimate controlling shareholder.
s0701b: ultimate controlling shareholder.s0702b: nature of ultimate controlling shareholder.
According to the CSMAR documentation, s0702b can be one of the following. Apparently, s0702b=1100 means the firm is a SOE.
| Code | Type |
|---|---|
| 1000 | Enterprise business unit |
| 1100 | State-owned Enterprise |
| 1210 | Collective-owned enterprises |
| 1200 | Private Enterprises |
| 1220 | Enterprises with funds from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan |
| 1230 | Foreign-funded enterprises |
| 2000 | Administrative departments or institutions |
| 2100 | Central institution |
| 2120 | Local institution |
| 2500 | Social Organization |
| 3000 | Natural Persons |
| 3110 | Domestic natural persons |
| 3120 | Natural person from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan |
| 3200 | Foreign natural person |
| 9999 | Other |
Princeton University Library has another guide on other ways to identify Chinese SOE.
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