This dissertation, "Firm Entry and Exit Patterns in Chinese Economy" by Yaohua, Lian, 連瑤華, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of the thesis entitled Firm Entry and Exit Patterns in Chinese Economy Submitted by Yaohua Lian for the degree of Master of Philosophy at The University of Hong Kong in August 2007 With the gradual reform of the Chinese economy from a planned economy to a market economy, the market structure has experienced significant transformation. In this process, the market has witnessed large amount of firm entry and exit, which is an important indication of the soundness and healthiness of the whole market operation according to classic economic theories. Although there are a lot of studies on firm entry and exit in western countries over a long period of time, the study on the Chinese economy is nearly blank. We believe that by studying on the basic patterns of firm entry and exit, we could have a better understanding on the economic transformation and operation in China and also make contribution to this field of study. In our study, we use the Annual Survey of Industrial Firms dataset which covers more than 150 thousand manufacturing enterprises annually in China from 1998-2003. Based on the theories developed by Jovanovic (1982) and Hopenhayn (1992) and some empirical methodologies used in previous studies, we examine the firm entry and exit patterns from different aspects. In the summary statistics part, we give out the basic aggregate rates as well as the industry output volatility rates to study sunk entry cost of different industries. Following a study of the ownership effects on productivity, we also check the productivity differences between entrants and incumbents as well as between surviving firms and exiting firms. In China, we could not see significant productivity differences in these two firm groups. Lastly, a study on the firm failure and growth is conducted. We find that firm size and age have significant influence on firm failure and growth. But opposite to the existing theories, in China, older and larger enterprises tend to grow more quickly. We have also added in some special factors relative to China such as ownership types and regional differences into our models to reflect the unique economic features of China as an improvement of the basic methodology developed in the literature. These two factors turned out to have significant effects on the firm entry and exit patterns. We hope that by conducting this study, we could add knowledge to the firm entry and exit patterns in China and in turn, to assess the Chinese economy from another point of view. (381 words) DOI: 10.5353/th_b3900588 Subjects: Business enterprises - China Business failures - China Success in business - China