Abstract: Guiding real enterprises to return to the real world is a key path to prevent and resolve systemic economic risks and to build a modern industrial system. Unlike existing studies that focus on government regulation and intervention, this paper examines the impact of the fair competition review system on real enterprises from the perspective of regulating administrative monopolies, using a double-difference model with a sample of A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2022. It is found that the system can significantly inhibit the financialisation of enterprises in administrative monopoly industries. The mechanism test finds that the fair competition review system suppresses financialisation by curbing excessive government subsidies, optimising the allocation of credit resources, intensifying market competition and mitigating agency conflicts. The heterogeneity test finds that the inhibitory effect of the system on corporate financialisation is more significant in SOEs, especially in functionally specific SOEs, and that the system’s inhibitory effect on financialisation is more effective when the government’s self-censorship is more stringent in the region where the firms are located, or when the level of marketisation is poorer. In addition, the fair competition review system significantly increases the scale of industrial investment and R&D investment while suppressing the financialisation of enterprises, which positively guides the real enterprises to 'return to the real world from the virtual world’. This study not only expands the research on the micro-governance effects of the fair competition review system but also provides valuable insights and practical references for government departments to suppress the economic trend of "shifting from real to virtual" from a macro-control perspective.

Key words: fair competition review system, financialization, return from virtual to real, administrative monopoly