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Abstract The private economy is an important foundation for advancing Chinese-style modernization and achieving high-quality development. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasized optimizing the development environment for private enterprises, protecting the property rights and rights and interests of private enterprises and entrepreneurs in accordance with the law, and promoting the growth and development of the private economy. However, existing research is inadequate describing the overall demands of private enterprises. This poses a challenge for scholars and policymakers to fully grasp the difficulties faced by private enterprises in the course of their development. This study aims to investigate the basic characteristics and spatial and temporal evolution patterns of private enterprises’ demands by leveraging big data and large language models, thereby providing policy references for precise policymaking and implementation to promote the growth and development of private enterprises.
Specifically, this study first categorizes the demands of private enterprises into five main themes based on theory and policy practice: market access and fair competition, government services and integrity,access to management elements, reasonable fees and fines, and protection of property rights and rights and interests of entrepreneurs. Based on nearly two million posts left by netizens on the “Message Board for Local Leaders” on people.com.cn from 2011 to 2021, and by utilizing the ChatGLM2-6B large language model, this paper accurately identified 6 633 demands from private enterprises from the nearly two million posts and categorized each demand into one of the five themes. The research results show that access to management elements and market access and fair competition are the most pressing demands of private entrepreneurs, accounting for 68.74% of the total demands. Among the issues related to access to management elements, the demand for funds is the strongest, accounting for as high as 62.98% within this category, followed by land and labor. Regarding market access and fair competition, private entrepreneurs most frequently reflect on local protectionism, accounting for 53.34% within this category. From a temporal perspective, the number of demands from private enterprises shows a clear upward trend, with the China-US trade friction and the COVID-19 pandemic being important external factors contributing to this trend. From a spatial perspective, the demands of private enterprises are mainly concentrated in the central, western, and northeastern regions, and the focus of demands from private enterprises varies across different regions. For example, issues related to the protection of property rights and the rights and interests of entrepreneurs are particularly prominent in the northeastern and central regions, while difficulties in accessing factors of production deserve particular attention in the northwestern, southwestern, central, and northern regions.
Based on the above empirical analysis, this paper draws the following three policy conclusions. First, to alleviate the difficulties in accessing management elements, the government should fully leverage the power of the “visible hand”, particularly in terms of guaranteeing funds and land for major industrial projects. Second, the government should clarify the “list of powers”, define the scope of government responsibilities, delineate the boundaries between the government and the market, curb arbitrary government actions, and address government inaction or slow action. Third, legal means should be employed to strengthen the protection of the rights and interests of private entrepreneurs and stabilize their development expectations.
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Published: 25 August 2024
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