This paper calculates the capacity utilization rate of Chinese industrial enterprises from 1998 to 2013 and listed enterprises from 1998 to 2019. Since the calculation of intermediate inputs was further optimized on the basis of Yu et al. (2018) and Zhu and Chen (2020), the calculation results of intermediate inputs in this paper were more accurate. The three-stage DEA method was selected to correct the traditional DEA method's neglect of external environmental differences and technical inefficiency (Zhang and Jiang 2017; Yu et al. 2018). Therefore, the measurement results of this paper are relatively more reasonable, which not only does not show outliers in previous related studies but also fits well with the macroeconomic background and the rhythm of capacity regulation. At the same time, this paper obtained the capacity utilization rate of the full sample of microenterprises over a long period of time in China, which is a characteristic of the measurement results in this paper.
3.1 Numerical analysis of the enterprise capacity utilization rate
Analysis of the calculation results shows that the capacity utilization rate of industrial enterprises above a designated size and listed enterprises in China is generally low. Therefore, in this paper, the excess industry refers to the industries explicitly involved in the 142 excess capacity regulation documents issued by the central government since 2001, including coal, iron and steel, nonferrous metals, cement, glass and 19 other industries of the national economy in the second industrial industry. The kernel density estimation results of the two types of enterprise measurement results are shown in Fig. 1, which shows that the distribution of capacity utilization in excess and non-excess industries of enterprises above the scale is similar and more concentrated at approximately 0.5 and 0.55, respectively. On the whole, they are both in the state of surplus, but the capacity utilization in excess industries is lower on the whole. The results of listed companies are obviously different. On the whole, the capacity utilization of excess industries is significantly lower than that of non-excess industries, and the results are concentrated at approximately 0.6, which is higher than that of enterprises in excess industries above scale, and the distribution is more discrete, indicating that there is a large degree of difference among enterprises in excess industries. The capacity utilization rate of listed companies in non-surplus industries is relatively high on the whole, concentrated at approximately 0.75, with relatively concentrated distribution and no excess on the whole.
3.2 Numerical analysis of industrial capacity utilization
In this paper, the proportion of enterprise output value in the total output value of the industry is taken as the weight, and the industry capacity utilization rate is obtained by the weighted sum of enterprise capacity utilization rate (see Fig. 2).[4] The measurement results are slightly lower than the results of Yu et al. (2018) and closer to the sampling survey results of the National Bureau of Statistics (2021)[5], and the sampling survey results of the bureau of Statistics are between the two groups of results measured in this paper. At the same time, in terms of the change trend of capacity utilization, Yu et al. (2018) found that the capacity utilization rate of China's industrial enterprises showed an overall upward trend from 1998 to 2007. Compared with 2011, the capacity utilization rate of 2012 decreased significantly, and 2013 was basically flat with 2012. Consistent with the macroeconomic background of China's rapid growth from 1998 to 2007 and the decline in the growth rate from approximately 2012, the calculation results of this paper at the industry level are completely consistent with this conclusion, which proves the intermediate product input estimation and the rationality of the three-stage DEA measurement method.
Further analysis of the calculation results shows that the capacity utilization rate of industrial industries in China is generally low, and the excess capacity of different industries varies greatly. In summary, only the oil and gas exploration of 39 industries (07), other mining (11), tobacco (16), oil processing and coking and nuclear fuel processing (25), chemical fiber industry (28), resource waste and waste materials recycling (43), water production and supply (46), and other industry capacity utilization rates have been high. All other industries have different degrees of overcapacity. Serious and persistent overcapacity mainly occurs in coal (06), iron and steel (32), nonferrous metals (32), cement and glass (31), chemical raw materials (26), electricity (44), agricultural and sideline food processing (13), textile, clothing and leather (17, 18, 19), etc. This is basically consistent with the 14 excess industries released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2015, which also proves the rationality of the calculation results in this paper.[6]In contrast, the industries in which listed companies operate have higher capacity utilization (see Appendix for the measurement results). In this paper, 39 industries in the national economic industry classification were divided into four major categories: the mining industry (6-12), light industry manufacturing industry (13-24, 28-30), heavy industry manufacturing industry (25-27, 31-43), and electricity, gas and water production and supply industry (44-46). The results show that the overcapacity of Chinese industrial enterprises is mainly concentrated in the mining industry and the heavy manufacturing industry. From 1998 to 2019, the capacity utilization rate of listed companies was higher than that of enterprises above scale, and the degree of overcapacity was lighter than that of industrial enterprises above scale (see Appendix for the calculation data). For specific industries and states of excess, refer to Table 1.
[4] The industry is classified according to the National Economic Industry Classification Standards (2013). The specific industry classification and code are as follows: coal mining and washing (06), oil and gas drilling (07), ferrous metal acquisition (08), nonferrous metals acquisition (09), nonmetallic mineral acquisition (10), (11) other mining, agricultural and sideline food (13), food (14) and beverages (15), tobacco (16), textile (17), textile and garment, shoes, hats (18), leather, fur, and feathers (fine hair) and its products (19), wood processing and wood, bamboo, cane, palm, grass products (20), furniture (21), paper and paper products (22), printing and recording media copy (23), stationary (24), oil processing and coking and nuclear fuel processing (25), chemical raw materials and chemical products (26), medicine (27), chemical fiber (28), rubber products (29), plastic products (30), nonmetallic mineral products (31), black metal smelting and rolling (32), nonferrous metal smelting and rolling (33), metal products (34), general equipment (35), special equipment (36), transportation equipment (37), electrical machinery and equipment (39), communication equipment, computers and other electronic devices (40), instruments and meters, and culture (41), office machinery, handicrafts and other (42), resource waste and old materials recycling (43), electric power, heat production and supply (44), gas production and supply (45), production and supply of water (46).
[5] The above data is compiled according to the monthly report of the survey data of industrial enterprise capacity utilization rate of the National Bureau of Statistics of China, http://www.stats.gov.cn/xxgk/sjfb/
[6] Ministry identified 2015 backward and overcapacity industries include: iron, steel, coke, iron alloy, calcium carbide, electrolytic aluminum, lead, copper smelting smelting, cement, plate glass, paper, leather, printing and dyeing, lead battery industry, as shown in the general office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology about to do a good job of backward and excess capacity related notice, www.miit.gov.cn/n1146295/n1652858/n1652930/n3757016/c4562358/content.html.