Abstract: The role of institutional investors in companies has been controversial for years. Prior research suggests that institutional ownership can either have a positive impact or a negative impact on the company. Based on data from the listed manufacturing A-share companies in China over the period of 2008 and 2018, we examine the impact of institutional ownership on the excess production capacity of enterprises and analyze the mechanism of action. We find that institutional ownership helps promote capacity utilization of the enterprise through two mechanisms:governance mechanism and information mechanism. The results show that:Institutional ownership has a more significant effect on excess capacity in the group with low level of internal and external corporate governance; Strategic institutional investors who can provide more information to companies have more significant inhibitory effect on excess capacity.

Key words: institutional ownership, excess capacity, corporate governance