This study documents a pervasive inverse relationship between asset growth rates and bond performance among non-investment and low-investment grade bonds. We argue such inverse relation holds ex ante considering a high growth rate in firm total assets results in growth in tangible assets and lowers bond default probabilities. Our empirical finding supports this hypothesis. Tangible asset growth of poorly rated bonds is negatively associated with contemporaneous bond performance and expected default probability. The finding is robust to different economic conditions and investment sentiments.

Using political turnovers in mayoral appointments at the prefecture-city level in China, we show that investors in the municipal corporate bond market price their concerns for rising local political uncertainty into bonds and relocate capital toward other corporate bonds issued by local firms. Municipal/non-municipal corporate bond issue spreads increase (decrease) by 8.9 (14) basis points before the expected political turnover of mayors and reverse afterwards. The effect is more prominent for bonds issued in cities with investors who have a strong local preference, suggesting investors switch from MCBs to local non-MCBs in their bond holdings. The pricing effect is also stronger for bonds issued in regions with more developed financial markets and bonds with lower credit ratings. Lastly, bond market participants only price in the political risk induced by the turnovers of politician with direct involvement in local economic activities.

This study investigates the impact of independent directors' participation in the shareholders meeting on corporate governance, and finds that the more frequently the independent directors attend shareholder meetings, the lower the degree of earnings management by the enterprise; the mechanism test shows that more information increases the probability, frequency, and severity of independent directors’ subsequent dissenting opinions; This study identified a new channel for independent directors to independently obtain true information and this is of great significance for regulators, shareholders, company board, and other stakeholders with an interest in how the information influence independent directors governance effects.

The advantages and disadvantages of universal banking have long been debated. Using the successive granting of lead underwriter qualifications to commercial banks in China as a quasi-natural experiment, we study the impact of universal banking on non-financial firms’ investment decisions. We find that after a firm’s main lending banks qualify as lead underwriters, the firm’s investment increases by 7.7 to 8.3 percent on a gross or net basis. The underlying mechanism is that universal banking can generate informational economies of scope and relax constraints on the provision of external finance. In contrast, we find no evidence on the conflict of interest between universal banks and their customers. Our study, therefore, sheds light on the potential gains from universal banking.

We investigate the impact of the geographic proximity of underwriters on bond characteristics by using corporate and enterprise bonds issued in China from 2009 to 2019. We find bonds underwritten by underwriters in close geographic proximity are associated with lower financing costs, longer maturity in high and medium credit rating firms, shorter maturity in low credit rating firms, and lower default risk. Further, we find substitution effects between the geographic proximity of underwriter and underwriter reputation, and also between the geographic proximity of underwriter and firm transparency on reducing the costs of bond financing; i.e., a better reputation of the underwriter or higher transparency of the firm will weaken geographical proximate underwriters’ effects. Our results are robust in subsamples when firms have different degrees of local government connections.

Using samples of corporate bonds issued by Chinese A-share firms from 2007 to 2019, we examine how the type of local bond underwriting firm, specifically, whether the local underwriter has foreign shareholders or does not have foreign shareholders, affects the number of bond covenants. Our findings suggest that local underwriters with foreign shareholders (UFS) add more covenants to their bonds to protect the interests of bondholders than local underwriters without foreign shareholders (UNFS). Thus, having UFS underwrite bonds in an emerging market generally helps investor protection. Our conclusion remains robust to alternative metrics of bond covenants and foreign shareholders, and after accounting for endogeneity. Additional analyses suggest that the effect of UFS on bond covenants is more salient when: 1) the issuer is opaque, has a dual board chair and CEO, or is a non-state owned firm, 2) the issuer is located in a poor legal environment, in a low marketization area, or a region with poor economic development, or 3) the foreign shareholder of the local underwriter has experience in its home market, is from a country with a better legal environment, or has ample experience in the Chinese underwriting business.

This study investigates the effect of financial technology (FinTech) development on stock price crash risk. We show that the development of FinTech can inhibit management from deliberately hiding bad news and alleviate information asymmetry, thereby reducing stock price crash risk. This effect is more pronounced among non-state-owned enterprises, firms with poor information environments and low-quality internal controls, and those in competitive industries and regions with high marketization. Overall, these findings suggest that the development of FinTech can mitigate the deliberate concealment of bad news by management and improve the timeliness of disclosure, leading to lower risks faced by investors.

Using the establishment of the Chinese Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund in 2014 as a quasi-natural experiment, we investigate whether and how the national industrial investment fund affects corporate R&D investment. We find that the policy has a significant and positive effect on corporate R&D investment, and this effect is more pronounced in firms with more severe financial constraints, poorer internal governance, and laxer external supervision. Furthermore, the mechanism tests show that this policy helps alleviate firms’ financial constraints and agency conflict, thereby increasing corporate R&D investment.

We examine an important yet understudied form of reputational sanction in China, namely public criticisms imposed on culpable firms by the Chinese stock exchanges from 2013 to 2018. We find significantly negative cumulative abnormal returns around the announcement date, and they were affected by several factors, including financing propensity, governance mechanism, and equity nature. However, the market reaction is significantly negative only for firms relying on external financing and non-state enterprises, and importantly, becomes insignificant in cases where the firm had self-exposed misconduct before the official announcement of public criticism. Further, we examine other effects of public criticism, finding that public criticism does not improve firms’ long-term values, nor produce strong deterrence to change their behaviour. Overall, the evidence of the effects of public criticism on culpable firms is mixed, suggesting that reputational sanction is a weak, if not ineffective, instrument of market regulation in China.

In this paper, we use a distinct quasi-natural experiments to examine the effect of liberalization of the stock market on corporate environmental, social, and governance(ESG) disclosure quality. We find that the liberation of the opening of Shanghai(Shenzhen)-Hong Kong Stock Connect (SHSC) significantly and consistently improves ESG disclosure quality of listed companies, and this effect is most evident in environmental information disclosure. We then find that the SHSC can improve the quality of ESG disclosure of listed companies through “voting with feet” and “external supervision” effect. Furthermore, the effect is stronger in firms that are Non-SOEs and with low equity concentrations. Overall, our results suggest that the liberalization of stock market can improve the quality of companies’ ESG disclosure quality.