Can higher levels of disclosure bring greater efficiency: Empirical research on the effect of government information disclosure on enterprise investment efficiency

Abstract

Government Information disclosure (GID) is an important part of Chinese efforts in improving doing-business environment. Based on the sample of China's listed enterprises, this paper studies the effect of government information disclosure on enterprise investment efficiency. We find that GID significantly improves enterprise investment efficiency, and this effect is stronger for non-SOE, and enterprises in regulated industries. Mechanism analysis suggests that when policy uncertainty is higher, the promotion effect of GID on enterprise investment efficiency is stronger. The analysis based on enterprises' survey data shows that the higher level of GID is associated with the lower enterprises' perception of policy uncertainty. These suggest that GID improves enterprise investment efficiency and raise the doing-business environment by reducing policy uncertainty.