This paper investigates the supervisory incentive effects of employee stock ownership plans based on a corporate risk-taking perspective using data from a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2006-2021. The results show that employee stock ownership plans significantly enhance corporate risk-taking. The specific mechanism is that employee stock ownership plans reduce the two-tier agency costs between shareholders and managers and managers and employees, alleviate corporate financing constraints, and thus enhance the level of corporate risk-taking. It is also found that employee stock ownership plan enhances the level of corporate risktaking with high quality, because employee stock ownership plan not only promotes R&D investment which is beneficial to corporate value growth, but also reduces excessive investment and high debt which are detrimental to corporate value, and the corporate risk-taking is of higher quality and more substantial value effect. In addition, differences in the institutional design of employee stock ownership plans have different effects on corporate risk-taking: employee stock ownership plans that are leveraged, highly discounted, with longer lock-up periods and duration, and entrusted to third-party institutions have a stronger effect on corporate risk-taking; employee subscriptions can promote corporate risk-taking more than executive subscriptions; employee stock ownership plans in China do not have the problem of "free-riding There is no "free-rider" problem in China's employee stock ownership plan. The larger the issuance ratio of the employee stock ownership plan, the greater the number of participants, and the larger the scale of capital, the better the implementation effect.

Comprehensive evaluation and identification of the critical regulatory determinants of carbon emission efficiency (CEE) are very important for China’s low-carbon transition. Accordingly, this paper first employs an undesirable global super-hybrid measure approach to calculate the CEE of China’s iron and steel industry (ISI). We then further use spatial error and threshold regression models to examine the spatial and non-linear effects of heterogeneous environmental regulations on CEE, respectively. Our empirical results show that (1) CEE varies significantly across China’s regions, with the eastern region having the highest CEE score, followed by the western and central regions, with the northeast region ranking the lowest; (2) command-and-control and market-incentive regulations both promote CEE, whereas the public participation approach does not significantly contribute to performance gains; (3) all three types of environmental regulations exhibit a non-linear threshold effect on CEE; (4) openness level, technological progress, and industrial concentration enhance efficiency gains, while urbanization level exerts a negative impact on CEE. Our findings have important implications for the design of environmental regulations.

旨在推动实现生态环境根本好转的质量型环境治理政策在多大程度上能够协同降碳，如何进一步提质增效，是推进“双碳”战略过程中亟需解答的关键问题。特别地，签署《巴黎协定》以来，中国在减污降碳协同增效面临着不同于以往的新形势和新任务。然而，受限于数据可得性，现有研究尚未提供这一时间段内的定量分析直接证据。本文使用新近的企业层面较为精细的碳排放数据，基于《打赢蓝天保卫战三年行动计划》（国发〔2018〕22号）的研究场景，系统分析了“双碳”背景下空气质量目标政策的微观降碳效果与增效机制。研究表明，蓝天保卫战能够协同降低企业碳排放强度，平均降幅约为15%，单个企业年均降碳量约为1.2万吨。这一效果主要由碳排放总量下降驱动，而非以生产活动收缩为代价，也未引起区域间和产业链上的碳泄漏问题。并且，与现有研究强调行业结构调整不同，本文发现高碳排放企业也实现了显著的减排效应。增效机制方面，蓝天保卫战主要通过促进企业绿色低碳投资发挥作用，而人力结构优化、绿色研发创新等机制尚未明显起效，同时缓解融资约束有助于提升协同降碳效果。本文的研究表明，进一步完善现有大气污染防治制度体系，辅以大规模节能降碳设备更新、优化生产要素配置以及绿色金融等组合措施，能够有效兼顾环境、气候和经济效益，助推减污降碳协同增效。

基金经理可能出于个人私利做出投资决策，这不但会损害基金投资者的利益，而且不利于共同富裕目标的实现。本文利用2012~2022年3243只开放式公募基金作为样本，在区分风格时序变化（自我漂移）和相对招募说明书变化（基准漂移）两类行为的基础上，系统考察了基金风格漂移的形成机制和影响效应。在形成机制上，自我漂移存在输家基金的热点追逐和赢家基金的价值挖掘两种动机，而基准漂移则完全来自于输家基金的热点追逐。这导致在影响效应上，自我漂移与基金未来业绩间的关系取决于基金的历史表现；但本质是欺骗投资者的基准漂移未来表现则显著更差。进一步研究发现，基金经理风格漂移的主要目的是出于薪酬激励而非职业忧虑。基金投资者尽管能够识别两种风格漂移的差异，但会盲目追逐自我漂移的基金，因而并未准确识别自我漂移背后的双重动机。

本文分析了全球数字金融的发展趋势，提出监管科技和金融安全的重要性日益凸显，数字基础设施建设的必要性增强，数字货币将成为经济运行的基石，传统经济理论的边界被迅速拓展，以及纸币消失与“金融元宇宙”的诞生等五个趋势，并从信息经济学的角度分析了数字经济发展对传统经济结构、数字经济理论对传统经济理论的冲击与挑战，并从信息经济学的角度辩证阐述了不确定性的含义，认为数字金融的发展将激发新质生产力，为创新和变革提供潜能。

Digital transformation (DT) is an ongoing and costly process that requires careful planning and the motivation of top executives (CEOs). This research analyze the CEOs compensation as a motivation to embrace DT by reducing agency issue. We determine the extent of DT through a textual analysis method and utilize data from Chinese publicly traded companies spanning the period between 2007 and 2020. Our study findings are threefold, (a) we observe a positive relationship between CEOs' pay gap and DT, highlighting the significant role CEOs compensation plays in encouraging CEOs to adopt digitalization, (b) we find that managerial shareholding significantly enhances this relationship, (c) we note that the relationship between CEOs pay gap and DT is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises compared to non-stateowned enterprises. Additionally, we discover through channel analysis that agency cost and audit quality mediate the relationship between CEOs pay gap and DT potentially by reducing the agency problem between CEOs and shareholders. These findings are vital for comprehending the pay practices and behaviors of corporate executives regarding digitalization in China. Importantly, the study results remain robust when considering instrumental variables (IV), propensity score matching (PSM), and alternative techniques.

Purpose – This study aims to investigate whether firms purchase directors’ and officers’ liability (D&O) insurance when the country-level economic policy uncertainty (EPU) is high. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses D&O insurance data from Chinese listed firms between 2003 and 2019 to conduct regression analyses to examine the association between D&O insurance and EPU. Findings – The results show that government EPU, despite being an exogenous factor, increases the likelihood of firms’ purchasing D&O insurance, and this effect is more pronounced when firms are exposed to great share price crash risk and high litigation risk, suggesting that firms intend to purchase D&O insurance possibly due to the accentuated stock price crash risk and litigation risk associated with EPU. In addition, the results indicate that the effect of EPU on the D&O insurance purchase decision is moderated by the provincial capital market development and internal control quality. Practical implications – The study highlights the role of uncertain economic policies in shareholder approval of D&O insurance purchases. Originality/value – The study enriches the literature on the determinants of D&O insurance purchases by documenting novel evidence that country-level EPU is a key institutional factor shaping firms’ decisions to purchase D&O insurance.

Software and accounting advances have led to a rapid expansion in and proliferation of loyalty tokens, typically bundled as part of product price. Some tokens, such as in the airline industry, already account for tens of billions of dollars and are a major contributor to revenues. An open question is whether, as technology evolves, firms will have a strong incentive to make loyalty tokens tradable, raising regulation issues, including with monetary and banking authorities. This paper argues that for the vast majority of tokens, issuing firms have a strong incentive to make them non-tradable. The core incentive for token issuance here is that an issuer can earn a higher rate of return on the ``float'' (tokens issued but not yet used) than its retail customers can, much like a bank. Our main finding is that an issuer earns higher revenue by making tokens non-tradable even though the consumer would be willing to pay a higher price for tradable tokens. We further show that an issuer with stronger market power tends to allow more frequent token redemption, and its revenue is more token-dependent. We test the model's predictions with data on airline mileage and hotel reward programs and document consistent empirical results that align with our theory.

近年来中国债券市场在快速发展的同时，出现了资源配置效率较低的问题。本文构建了一个简单的融资担保模型，来说明设立省级AAA担保机构能提高城投债市场资源配置效率。理论模型指出，AAA担保机构能够帮助具有社会效益的中风险项目成功发债融资，且若省级AAA担保机构具有更好的信息处理能力，则设立单一省级担保机构相比分散设立市级担保机构能够更有效配置担保资本。实证分析表明：（1）AAA担保机构的成立的确能够提高城投公司债券的发行金额和发行数量；（2）AAA担保机构正是通过更好的信息处理能力和项目风险评估，促进了城投债市场资源配置效率的提升；（3）AAA担保机构成立能够促进当地基础设施建设，促进地区经济增长，并降低银行不良贷款率。本文的研究表明，提高担保机构的信息处理能力，增加优质担保供给，能够提升直接融资体系的资源配置效率，从而让金融更好地促进经济社会高质量发展。

In the digital era, the information value of online prices, characterized by weak price stickiness and high sensitivity to economic shocks, deserves more attention. This paper integrates the high-frequency online inflation rate into the dynamic Nelson-Siegel (DNS) model to explore its relationship with the term structure of interest rates. The empirical results show that the weekly online inflation can significantly predict the yield curve, particularly the slope factor, while the monthly official inflation is predicted by yield curve factors. The mechanism analyses indicate that, due to low price stickiness, online inflation is more responsive to short-term economic conditions and better reflects money market liquidity, thereby having predictive power for the yield curve. Specifically, online inflation for non-durable goods and on weekdays shows stronger predictive power for the slope factor. The heterogeneity in price stickiness across these categories explains the varying impacts on the yield curve.