5.5. Control variables
We measured firm age by subtracting the year of establishment or incorporation from the year of 2009. Firm size was measured by the natural logarithm of the firm's total number of employees in 2009.We controlled public listing using a dummy variable, with 1 for listed firms; otherwise, 0 for non-listed firms. Moreover, we included two separate dummies for foreign ownership, WFOE takes the value of 1 if the firm is wholly foreign owned, whereas joint-venture (JV) takes the value of 1 if ownership is shared between one or more foreign and local partners.