Green bonds have emerged as a novel funding mechanism specifically aimed at addressing environmental challenges. Focusing on A-share listed companies in China that went public with bond issues domestically from 2012 to 2021, we reveal that companies with higher energy usage and better environmental disclosure quality are the most inclined to issue green bonds. Such issuance is identified as a pathway towards real green transformation, markedly boosting the green transformation index, green innovation efficiency, and ESG performance. Further analysis indicates that the effect of substantial transformation is particularly pronounced among companies in the eastern regions of China.

China faces significant environmental challenges, including reducing pollutants, improving environmental quality, and peaking carbon emissions. Industrial restructuring is key to achieving both emission reductions and economic transformation. This study uses the Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output model and multi-objective optimization to analyze pathways for China’s industrial transformation to synergistically reduce emissions. Our findings indicate that under a compromise scenario, China’s carbon emissions could stabilize at around 10.9 billion tonnes by 2030, with energy consumption controlled at approximately 5 billion tonnes. The Papermaking sector in Guangdong and the Chemicals sector in Shandong are expected to flourish, while the Coal Mining sector in Shanxi and the Communication Equipment sector in Jiangsu will see reductions. The synergy strength between carbon emission reduction and energy conservation is highest at 11%, followed by a 7% synergy between carbon emission and nitrogen oxide reduction. However, significant trade-offs are observed between carbon emission reduction and chemical oxygen demand, and ammonia nitrogen reduction targets at -9%. This comprehensive analysis at regional and sectoral levels provides valuable insights for advancing China’s carbon reduction and pollution control goals.

This study examines how full-time external supervisors affect corporate irregularities using listed Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as a research sample. We find that full-time external supervisors restrain corporate irregularities. This outcome continues to hold after accounting for potential endogeneity concerns. Further mediating effect analysis shows that full-time external supervisors mitigate corporate irregularities by curbing managers' opportunistic behavior. Additionally, the heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that the impact of full-time external supervisors on corporate irregularities varies significantly across different types of SOEs and internal control environments. Overall, this paper enriches and expands the literature on the effectiveness of full-time external supervisors in emerging economies and provides new insights for dealing with corporate irregularities.

This study explores the anchoring effect of previous bid premiums on acquirers’ bidding behavior in serial acquisitions. We demonstrate that, after controlling for deal characteristics, learning, and unobserved factors, the current bid premium is positively correlated with the acquirer’s previous bid premium. The strength of this anchoring effect diminishes with longer time intervals between acquisitions and increases with the industry similarity of targets. Notably, it remains unaffected by the acquirer’s state ownership or acquisition frequency. Additionally, the anchoring effect is less pronounced during periods of high economic uncertainty and can reverse following a change in the acquirer’s CEO. Our findings suggest that serial acquisitions are interrelated events, challenging the notion that each bid is an isolated occurrence. This research provides insights into the underperformance of serial acquirers compared to single acquirers and the declining trend in announcement returns across successive deals.

This research examines the impact of short selling on the financing cost of corporate bonds using panel data from Chinese A-share listed companies spanning the period from 2007 to 2022. The study aims to investigate the potential cross-market information spillover effects within the short selling system. The findings indicate that short selling significantly reduces the financing cost of corporate bonds, with a more pronounced effect observed under greater short selling forces. The robustness of the results is confirmed by controlling for various potential influencing factors and addressing the endogeneity issue through Propensity Score Matched Difference in Differences (PSM-DID) methodology. Moreover, the research reveals that the alleviation of information asymmetry serves as the primary mechanism through which short selling exerts its impact, particularly in regions with well-developed financial markets and favorable legal environments. This study offersa novel perspective of short selling in China and it sheds light on its cross-market spillover effects. By effectively enhancing resource allocation efficiency in capital markets, short selling emerges as a potent tool for mitigating information disparities between bond investors and enterprises.

Previous studies on the impact of corporate information disclosure on stock price crash risk have largely focused on financial statements. In contrast, China’s unique monthly operating report disclosure system—featuring high frequency and realtime operational data—offers a distinct information channel. Using data from A-share listed firms from 2010 to 2021, we find that monthly operating report disclosures significantly reduce stock price crash risk by alleviating information asymmetry between firms and external stakeholders. The underlying mechanisms involve restraining managerial opportunism and correcting investor expectation biases. Further analysis shows that firms’ official responses to investor inquiries has no significant effect on crash risk once monthly operational disclosures are accounted for, underscoring that the quality of information disclosed is as important as its frequency. The risk-reducing effect is more pronounced among firms with greater business complexity, weaker internal controls, and lower institutional ownership.

This paper analyzes the impact of risk disclosures in bond prospectuses on the credit risk premium in the Chinese corporate bond market through six textual characteristics comprehensively. In the empirical analysis, the collected 5199 bond prospectuses and structured data concerning control variables from 2006 to 2021 are used to perform the fixed effect regression analysis. The results show that fewer Words, less Boilerplate, higher Fog Index, more HardInfoMix, more Redundancy, and higher Specificity of risk disclosures in bond prospectuses will lead to a higher credit risk premium. Further tests demonstrate that ceteris paribus, the negative impact of Words and Boilerplate will be strengthened by implicit government guarantees carried by a state-owned enterprise but be weakened by better corporate business performance. However, ceteris paribus, positive effects of the Fog Index, HardInfoMix, Redundancy, and Specificity will be weakened when the bond issuer is state-owned but be strengthened by better corporate business performance.

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

When examining corporate governance in China, it is crucial to recognize the unique socio-economic structures and legal systems at play. The mechanisms of corporate governance theorized in the West might not necessarily have the same impact in China. In particular, given China’s distinct feature of the domestic economy and its socio-political structure, the results of introducing a hostile takeover system might not align with common anticipations that scholars and policymakers in China and elsewhere broadly share. In greater detail, this paper highlights the significant market imperfections in the Chinese economy, stemming from information asymmetry, imperfect product markets, and capital-market inefficiency. These market imperfections suggest that an active hostile takeover regime might not function effectively in China, as its disciplinary mechanism operates successfully in other advanced countries. Additionally, this paper underscores that due to China’s distinctive features—including its state-owned corporate landscape, the dominance of controlling shareholders in private corporations’ ownership structures, and its unique brand of socialism—the introduction of an active takeover regime could produce unintended consequences in the Chinese economy. Overall, challenging the prevailing perspective, I posit that within the Chinese hostile takeover framework, corporate governance is not as influential as one might assume.

We examine whether and how mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures affect corporate tax avoidance. Using a CSR disclosure mandate in China that requires a subset of firms to disclose their CSR activities as an exogenous shock to CSR disclosures, our difference-in-differences analyses show that firms affected by the disclosure mandate engage in less tax avoidance relative to control firms. Additional analyses indicate that increased public scrutiny following the disclosure mandate is the likely channel through which mandatory CSR disclosures constrain tax avoidance. Cross-sectional analyses suggest that the effect of the disclosure mandate varies with institutional environments. Overall, our results indicate that the CSR disclosure mandate constrains corporate tax avoidance, which is consistent with mandatory CSR disclosures nudging firms toward more socially desirable behavior.