Do China's State-Owned Enterprises Maximize Profit?

The usual belief is that the China's state enterprise reform with contract management responsibility system has led state-owned enterprises to maximize profit. Nonetheless the poor performance of state-owned enterprises after the reform relative to other forms of enterprises remains a puzzle. As the existing explanations for this puzzle based on increased competition or soft budget constraint are not entirely satisfactory, the authors propose an alternative explanation based on the incentive aspect of the reform.