Volume of real estate market in some China’s large cities decreased sharply in 2010. Based on rational reconstruction of some basic economic thought and analytical narrative of the real estate price bubble ,I conclude that it should be contributed to a big gap between demand and supply, and financial crisis would break out in the coming few month in China. I make proposal that government should be reducing state-owned share.

We investigate the impact of strategic investors on bank efficiency in the context of regional economic development. The data on Chinese city commercial banks operating regionally are well-suited for the study. Findings suggest that strategic investors significantly increase efficiency in Chinese city commercial banks; the impact of strategic investors on the efficiency of Chinese city commercial banks is negatively correlated to the level of regional economic development. The negative correlation of the impact of strategic investors on Chinese city commercial banks’ efficiency with regional economic development may be explained by the mix of the local official promotion system and the city commercial banks’ governance structure.

We examine the impact of corporate ownership structure on the value of excess cash in Chinese listed firms. We find that the value of excess cash is less in firms controlled by private investors than in those firms controlled by the government. One dollar of excess cash is valued a $0.36 in firms controlled by private investors while it rises to $0.42 in firms controlled by the government. Furthermore, we show that the expropriation of the controlling shareholders is significantly and positively related with the previous year’s excess cash in firms controlled by private investors while it is insignificant in firms controlled by the government. These findings are consistent with the view that private controlling shareholders have the greater ability to extract private benefit in cash holdings.

What are the effects of policy reversals which were initiated by the US bureaucracy in response to the 2008 global financial crisis? Answering this question is challenging because US capital markets are relatively mature and policy reversals are far and in between in recent years. Specifically, the challenges include the one-time nature of these US policy reversals, the confounding effects of many programs targeting interrelated segments of the capital markets at the same time as well as possible endogeneity issues. China, on the other hand, offers a natural experiment to study the effects of policy reversals. In the last three decades, the Chinese government has initiated many policy changes to liberalize the capital markets and some of these have been reversed several times. Using hand-collected data of policy reversals targeting the Chinese stock markets from 1994 through 2009, we are able to address the first two challenges. To resolve any endogeneity issue, we focus on the impact of such policy reversals (targeted at the Chinese stock markets) on the Chinese repo markets, which trade market-driven interest rates. We find that the Chinese policy reversals are indeed effective in reducing the term spread, the volatility of the interest rate, and the volatility of the term spread. Our results suggest that the policy risk is systematically priced in financial securities, implying that policy makers can rely on financial market indicators to objectively evaluate their policy decisions.

What are the effects of policy reversals which were initiated by the US bureaucracy in response to the 2008 global financial crisis? Answering this question is challenging because US capital markets are relatively mature and policy reversals are far and in between in recent years. Specifically, the challenges include the one-time nature of these US policy reversals, the confounding effects of many programs targeting interrelated segments of the capital markets at the same time as well as possible endogeneity issues. China, on the other hand, offers a natural experiment to study the effects of policy reversals. In the last three decades, the Chinese government has initiated many policy changes to liberalize the capital markets and some of these have been reversed several times. Using hand-collected data of policy reversals targeting the Chinese stock markets from 1994 through 2009, we are able to address the first two challenges. To resolve any endogeneity issue, we focus on the impact of such policy reversals (targeted at the Chinese stock markets) on the Chinese repo markets, which trade market-driven interest rates. We find that the Chinese policy reversals are indeed effective in reducing the term spread, the volatility of the interest rate, and the volatility of the term spread. Our results suggest that the policy risk is systematically priced in financial securities, implying that policy makers can rely on financial market indicators to objectively evaluate their policy decisions.

Banking competition may enhance or hinder the financing of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Using a survey on the financing of China’s SMEs combined with detailed bank branch information, we investigate how concentration in the local banking market affects the availability of credit. It is found that lower market concentration alleviates financing constraints. The un-concentrated presence of joint stock banks has a larger effect on alleviating credit constraints, while the presence of state-owned banks has a smaller effect, than the presence of city commercial banks.

I use land auction data in Taipei City and in Taipei County to test Sherman’s (2005) information production theory. Results show that bidders in Taipei City (a core metropolitan area) and those in Taipei County (a suburb) have different bidding behavior. I find that bids in Taipei City’s land auctions are generally consistent with the predictions of auction theory for informed bidders. They tend to expend resources to collect information and shave their bids optimally. However, bids in Taipei County exhibit uninformed and overbidding behavior.

Using quarterly data from 1998:Q1 to 2009:Q4 and monthly data from July 2005 to February 2010, this paper examines the impact of key monetary policy variables, including long- term benchmark bank loan rate, money supply growth, and mortgage credit policy indicator, on the real estate price growth dynamics in China. Empirical results consistently demonstrate that lower interest rate, faster money supply growth and loosening mortgage down payment requirement tend to accelerate the subsequent home price growth, and vice versa. These results suggest that Chinese monetary policy actions are the key driving forces behind the change of real estate price growth in China. We also show that hot money flow does not have significant impact on the change of home price growth after controlling for the money supply growth. Finally, a bullish stock market tends to accelerate subsequent home price growth.

We empirically evaluate 20 prominent contributions to a broad range of areas in the empirical corporate finance literature. We assemble the necessary data and then apply a single, simple econometric method, the connected-groups approach of Abowd, Karmarz, and Margolis (1999), to appraise the extent to which prevailing empirical specifications explain variation of the dependent variable, differ in composition of fit arising from various classes of independent variables, and exhibit resistance to omitted variable bias and other endogeneity problems. In particular, we identify and estimate the role of observed and unobserved firm- and manager-specific characteristics in determining primary features of corporate governance, financial policy, payout policy, investment policy, and performance. Observed firm characteristics do best in explaining market leverage and CEO pay level and worst for takeover defenses and outcomes. Observed manager characteristics have relatively high power to explain CEO contract design and low power for firm focus and investment policy. Estimated specifications without firm and manager fixed effects do poorly in explaining variation in CEO duality, corporate control variables, and capital expenditures, and best in explaining executive pay level, board size, market leverage, corporate cash holdings, and firm risk. Including manager and firm fixed effects, along with firm and manager observables, delivers the best fit for dividend payout, the propensity to adopt antitakeover defenses, firm risk, board size, and firm focus. In terms of source, unobserved manager attributes deliver a high proportion of explained variation in the dependent variable for executive wealth-performance sensitivity, board independence, board size, and sensitivity of expected executive compensation to firm risk. In contrast, unobserved firm attributes provide a high proportion of variation explained for dividend payout, antitakeover defenses, book and market leverage, and corporate cash holdings. In part, these results suggest where empiricists could look for better proxies for what current theory identifies as important and where theorists could focus in building new models that encompass economic forces not contained in existing models. Finally, we assess the relevance of omitted variables and endogeneity for conventional empirical designs in the various subfields. Including manager and firm fixed effects significantly alters inference on primary explanatory variables in 17 of the 20 representative subfield specifications.

Little is known about the underlying sources of gains from takeovers. Using plant-level data from the U.S. Census Bureau, I show that one source of gains is increased productivity of capital and labor in target plants. In particular, acquirers significantly reduce investments, wages, and employment in target plants, though output is unchanged relative to comparable plants. Acquirers also aggressively shut down target plants, especially those that are inefficient. Moreover, these changes help explain the merging firms' announcement returns. The total announcement returns to the combined firm are driven by improvements in target firm's productivity, rather than cutbacks in wages and employment. Also, targets with greater post-takeover productivity improvements receive higher offer premiums from acquirers. These results provide some of the first empirical evidence on the direct relation between productivity, labor, and stock returns in the context of takeovers.