Taking the Stock Connect scheme as an exogenous shock based on data of China’s Ashare non-financial listed companies from 2009 to 2021, we identify the causal effect of stock market liberalization on green innovation. The baseline result based on a staggered difference-indifferences (DID) model suggests that stock market liberalization promotes corporate green innovation and this effect is similar to the green benefits of China’s mandatory environmental regulations. The results are robust to various checks, including the parallel trend tests, placebo tests, and the heterogenous time-varying treatment test based on Bacon decomposition and the DIDM approach. The enhanced continuity of corporate financing, improved corporate green governance and increased firm external technological collaboration are three plausible channels that allow stock market liberalization to promote corporate green innovation. Moreover, the effect is more significant for clean firms, non-SOEs, and firms in a good institutional environment. Further analysis suggests that the green innovation-enhancing effects of stock market liberalization are more likely to be high-quality innovation. Our paper provides new insights into understanding the green benefits of stock market liberalization and achieving sustainable economic development in developing countries.

Improving green total-factor productivity (GTFP) in the power industry is crucial for achieving China's clean and low-carbon transition and sustainable economic growth. Green technological innovation (GTI) is a key factor driving carbon emissions reduction and improving economic efficiency in the power industry. Therefore, this study utilizes data from 30 provinces in China covering the period 2005-2021 and employs a Difference-in-Difference (DID) model to investigate the impact of the carbon trading pilot policy (CTPP) on GTFP in the power industry from the perspective of GTI. The results indicate the following: First, CTPP significantly enhances GTFP in the pilot regions of the power industry. Second, GTI plays a positive mediating role in the relationship between CTPP and GTFP in the power industry, validating the existence of Porter effect in China's power industry carbon emission trading system. Third, there are heterogeneities in the policy effects across the pilot regions, with Beijing and Guangdong achieving outstanding results in improving GTFP compared to other carbon trading pilots. Finally, relevant policy recommendations are provided for carbon market development and improving GTFP in the power industry.

By exploring additional information, both institutional investors’ site visits and analyst coverage can stimulate corporate innovation. However, because analysts are more specialized in information exploration, their existence should weaken the effect of institutional site visits on corporate innovation. By using Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2013, we investigate the effect of institutional site visits on firms’ innovation output, with a focus on its heterogeneity from analyst coverage. We use patent citation records to accurately measure firms’ innovation output. We find that institutional site visits significantly enhance corporate innovation among firms without analyst coverage, among firms with low analyst coverage, while this effect turns insignificant among firms with high analyst coverage. IV estimations confirm the causality. Additionally, we find that our major results exist only among non-SOEs, firms with a lower quality of information disclosure, firms with lower liquidity, and newly listed firms. Overall, this paper helps better understand the interaction between institutional site visits and analyst coverage regarding information exploration.

We examine the effect of the identification of high-tech enterprises on corporate innovation from the perspective of supplier relationship management. We use data from the Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies in China from 2007 to 2020 as samples and a time-varying difference-in-differences (DID) method. The results show that the identification of high-tech enterprises significantly promotes corporate innovation. The potential mechanism is that there is a sharp decline in the concentration of suppliers, the occupation of suppliers’ trade credit, and the inventory cost of enterprise after getting the identification of high-tech enterprises. Further analyses show that the enterprise identified as a high-tech enterprise tends to be more innovative due to the improvement of the supplier relationship management, leading to a better operating performance. Overall, our findings indicates a positive implementation effect of the policy of identification of high-tech enterprises. This paper not only contributes to the research about the economic consequences of the identification of high-tech enterprises from the perspective of supplier relationship management, but also enriches the existing literature on the effect of the supply relationship on corporate innovation, and supplier relationship management from the perspective of identification of high-tech enterprises. In summary, this study provides a theoretical basis and policy reference for the evaluation of the implementation effect of the policy of identification of high-tech enterprises, and the strengthening of supplier relationship management .

The past three decades have witnessed the boom of patents and mounting place-based innovation policies (PIPs) in China. However, the PIP-innovation nexus, particularly the distortion effect and underlying mechanisms, remains poorly understood. Matching micro-level patent data and industrial firm data, we documented a promotion effect of PIPs on local firm innovation measured by both patent quantity and quality. Moreover, we observed a distortion effect on patent quality following the 2008 crisis, primarily originating from privately owned enterprises rather than stateowned ones. Drawing from theories of technological learning and the unique institutional characteristics of PIPs in China, we have further unpacked the underlying mechanisms driving these effects: Both industry-academia collaboration and foreign direct investment play significant roles in the PIP-innovation nexus, and the latter appears to be particularly influential in causing the distortion effect. Additionally, our analysis has revealed that preferential policies, such as patent subsidies and reductions in land prices, are instrumental in enabling PIPs to exert their impact.

This study investigates the impact of early leadership experiences on innovation performance in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China. Using Enterprise Survey for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in China (ESIEC) cross-sectional datasets, it examines the mediating role of psychological traits and the moderating effect of age in this relationship. The analysis employs fixed effects models to control for regional and industry-specific unobserved characteristics. Results indicate a significant positive relationship between early leadership experiences and innovation, with psychological traits mediating this relationship strongly in younger entrepreneurs. For older entrepreneurs, early leadership has a more direct and stronger impact on innovation. These findings underscore the importance of early leadership development in education phase and suggest that the influence and pathways evolve with age, offering particular insights into the formation and application of social and human capital in the entrepreneurial journey.

Using data from Chinese A-share listed firms from 2015 to 2022, a difference-in-differences model is employed to empirically examine the impact of bankruptcy regimes, marked by the establishment of the bankruptcy court, on firms’ total factor productivity (TFP). The results show a significant decline in TFP among firms in regions following the establishment of the bankruptcy court. This result remains valid after a series of robustness tests. Mechanism tests reveal that bankruptcy court heightens firms’ risk aversion by endowing excessive rights to creditors. Consequently, firms tend to downwardly adjust capital structure, curtail innovation investment, and accumulate liquid assets as coping measures, ultimately contributing to a decline in TFP. However, well-developed market mechanisms can alleviate the negative impact of bankruptcy court excessively protecting creditors. Specifically, when firms are located in regions with weak government intervention and strong financial development, as well as in market environments with low uncertainty and strong competition, this negative impact can be mitigated. Moreover, we find that under bankruptcy court operations, while a series of risk reduction measures taken by firms triggers a decline in TFP, it mitigates the risk of financial distress. These findings provide fresh insights into the dual nature of creditor protection and offer valuable references for governments to improve the bankruptcy legal system.

The progression of the social credit system is crucial for fostering enterprise innovation and elevating the quality of economic development. Based on the quasi-natural experiment of establishing demonstration cities for the social credit system, this study delves into whether the construction of a social credit system can indeed foster enterprise innovation. Our findings indicate that the establishment of demonstration cities for social credit system promotes enterprise innovation and improves the quality of innovation. Furthermore, mechanism test shows that it alleviates financing constraints faced by enterprises, leading to an increase in the scale and maturity of corporate loans, ultimately fostering corporate innovation. Further analysis of heterogeneity highlights that this positive impact is particularly evident in non-state-owned enterprises and those facing severe financing constraints. These findings present insights that the pivotal role of informal institutions, such as the social credit system, in facilitating the upgrading of industrial structures and augmenting the quality of economic development.

A lack of sufficient information about potential borrowers is a major obstacle to access to financing from the traditional financial sector. In response to the need for better information to prevent fraud, to increase access to finance and to support balanced sustainable development, countries around the world have moved over the past several decades to develop credit information reporting requirements and systems to improve the coverage and quality of credit information. Until recently, such requirements mainly covered only banks. However, with the process of digital transformation in China and around the world, a range of new credit providers have emerged, in the context of financial technology (FinTech, TechFin and BigTech). Application of advanced data and analytics technologies provides major opportunities for both market participants – both traditional and otherwise – as well as for credit information agencies: by utilizing advanced technologies, participants and credit reporting agencies can collect massive amounts of information from various online and other activities (‘Big Data’), which contributes to the analysis of borrowing behavior and improves the accuracy of creditworthiness assessments, thereby enhancing availability of finance and supporting growth and development while also moderating prudential, behavioral and conduct related concerns at the heart of financial regulation. Reflecting international experience, China has over the past three decades developed a regulatory regime for credit information reporting and business. However, even in the context of traditional banking and credit, it has not come without problems. With the rapid growth and development of FinTech, TechFin and BigTech lenders, however, have come both real opportunities to leverage credit information and data but also real challenges around its regulation. For example, due to fragmented sources of borrower information and the involvement of many players of different types, there are difficulties in clarifying the business scope of credit reporting and also serious problems in relation to customer protection. Moreover, inadequate incentives for credit information and data sharing pose a challenge for regulators to promote competition and innovation in the credit market. Drawing upon the experiences of other jurisdictions, including the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Singapore and Hong Kong, this paper argues that China should establish a sophisticated licensing regime and setout differentiated requirements for credit reporting agencies in line with the scope and nature of their business, thus addressing potential for regulatory arbitrage. Further, there is a need to formulate specific rules governing the provision of customer information to credit reporting agencies and the resolution of disputes arising from the accuracy and completeness of credit data. An effective information and data sharing scheme should be in place to help lenders make appropriate credit decisions and facilitate access to finance where necessary. The lessons from China’s experience in turn hold key lessons for other jurisdictions as they move from credit information to credit data regulation in their own financial systems.

The development of the wealth management market is based on the needs of investors. The logic of market regulation should also be based on the interests of investors. On the basis of summarizing the regulatory experience of the global wealth management market, suggestions are put forward to improve the system of China's wealth management market . The fundamental driving force for the establishment of a regulatory legal system for the wealth management market comes from the needs of the development of the wealth management market. Moreover, the structure and process of this institutional construction are also closely related to the structure and development of market demand. China's current wealth management market has become a huge financial sector, and the deepening of the market and the diversification of participants all put forward requirements for the construction of a fair and scientific regulatory system. Wealth management business is different from traditional financial business in many aspects such as function, business standard and business model, and its basic legal relationship is also far from traditional business. The commonality of business in China's current wealth management market is in line with the basic elements of the legal relationship of trust. From the perspective of the realistic basis and the nature of the industry, it is appropriate to define the basic legal nature of wealth management business as a trust relationship. Due to factors such as information asymmetry and economic scale, financial investors are in a serious imbalance and imbalance when they trade with financial institutions. Therefore, the financial supervision system should grasp this core contradiction, give investors the status of consumer protection, and establish the concept of protecting wealth consumers. The regulation of wealth management operators should grasp the requirements of the basic trust relationship, take the basic principle of supervising the performance of trustee duties by financial management institutions, and implement a series of rules for trustees to be loyal and prudent in financial management. These rules should focus on risk prevention, and include establishment of access standards for wealth management business, supervision of independent development of wealth management business, supervision of full performance of prudent management duties by wealth management institutions, and guidance for healthy development of wealth management institutions. The experience in the supervision of developed wealth management markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Singapore shows that the establishment of a legal system for the protection of wealth management consumers is an inevitable result of the development of the financial market, and it is necessary to set up special institutions and mechanisms to implement the concept of wealth management investor protection, and emphasize wealth management products. Providers' fiduciary obligations to investors, and functional supervision based on a unified system in the regulatory system can be used as a reference for China . China's wealth management market regulatory system include inconsistent rules, weak protection, biased guidance, and lack of independence. Due to the separate regulatory system, different game rules apply to homogeneous wealth management business operated by different types of financial institutions, resulting in rule conflicts and market injustice. However, the substantive rights of wealth management investors still exist in a vacuum that cannot be confirmed. At the same time, the status of consumers is far from being officially confirmed, and the consumer protection mechanism cannot truly achieve justice. As regulatory guidance still favors the concept and tools of supervising traditional businesses, wealth management institutions mainly expand extensively by selling products, and wealth management products also present serious "bond-like" characteristics. The "non-neutral " positioning of financial regulatory agencies has externalized into phenomena such as rule conflicts, "policy following suit" and "excessive maintenance of stability". Constructing and continuously improving China's wealth management market supervision system is: the purpose of supervision is to restore the effective operation of the market mechanism. The basic legal relationship in China's wealth management market should be recognized as a trust relationship. This is not only an essential requirement of the wealth management market, but also a practical need to integrate regulatory chaos. It is the trend of financial and economic development that the regulatory system positions the position of wealth management consumers. It should start with legislative policies, make key breakthroughs around consumers' substantive rights and protection mechanisms, and gradually improve investor protection mechanisms. The regulatory system should focus on supervising financial institutions to fulfill their fiduciary obligations, and establish sound access rules, business independence rules, prudent management rules, and strict market exit mechanisms. China's wealth management market supervision system should be based on unified legislation and gradually implement functional supervision in order to achieve effective management and harmonious development of the wealth management market.