We explore the relationship between fintech, macroprudential policies, and commercial bank risk-taking. Based on system generalized method of moment modeling on a panel data of 114 commercial banks in China from 2013 to 2020, results show that there are functional differences in the impact of fintech on bank risk-taking. Payment and settlement technology (PST), capital raising technology (CRT) and investment management technology (IMT) are positively correlated with bank risk-taking. In contrast, market facility technology (MFT) negatively correlates with bank risk-taking. We also find that macroprudential policies weaken the promotion effect of CRT on bank risk-taking and strengthen the inhibition effect of MFT on bank risk-taking while having no significant moderating effect on PST and bank risk, IMT and bank risk. Further, the micro characteristics of banks (capital adequacy ratio, asset scale, liquidity level) affects the moderating strength of macroprudential policies. Various robustness tests confirm our conclusions.

Referring to the newspaper textual analysis method by Baker et al. (2016), this study constructs a monthly Chinese Real Estate Policy Uncertainty (REPU) index from 2001 to 2018. The index increases significantly near the promulgation of major policies. We also conduct evaluation of the index with the vector autoregression (VAR) model, which reveals that the rise of REPU indicates the decline in the growth rate of commodity housing development investment, sales area, and real estate industry added value. The REPU index is helpful to expand the understanding of policy uncertainty, and the accurate measurement of REPU is the basis for further research of its impact on China's real estate market.

This paper examines the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the future stock price crash risk using a sample of Chinese listed firms. We employ the divergence of CSR ratings for measuring the unmeasurable outcome uncertainty, and find that conditional on firms’ CSR performance, future stock price crash risk will arise with the CSR divergence. Further results show that the moderating effect is more pronounced for firms with weaker investor protection or higher agency costs. We conclude that firms with higher CSR divergence have more severe agency problem which is complementary to the literature where stakeholders’ theory dominates.

This paper uses a loan transactions dataset from China to identify whether shadow loans cost more than formal bank loans even with collateral. This motivates us to explore the reasons as to why a listed firm would opt for such loans. Using propensity-score matched data, we find that privately-owned firms with shadow loans are forced to obtain these loans since they are politically discriminated following a regulation change in 2009 that favoured state-owned firms. However, state-owned firms obtain shadow loans due to their inferior firm characteristics. Further, we employ a Difference-in-Differences methodology to uncover that privately-owned firms experience a decline in their performance, investment growth and an increase in default probability following their high dependence on shadow loans when they are excluded from the formal loan market. The above results survive various robustness checks, including doubly-robust inverse-probability weighted Difference-in-Differences regressions.

Distinct from existing studies on general institutional investors and institutional investor cliques, this study examines how common institutional owners, who simultaneously hold more than 5% equity blocks in at least two publicly traded firms within the same industry, influence firms’ bad mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in China. Contrary to the “conspiracy tort” view, according to which common institutional owners are more likely to vote for bad M&A deals to pursue internalized gains from industry portfolios (Antón et al., 2022b), our results strongly support the “synergy governance” view, according to which common institutional owners perform more actively and effectively in monitoring against bad M&As and improving M&A quality. There is further evidence that common institutional owners with greater peer linkages and industry power and longer-term holdings are more likely to oppose deals with negative acquirer returns. Finally, we find that the effect of common institutional ownership on M&As is more pronounced among firms with stronger earnings management, moderate stock return synchronicity, less management shareholding and higher management expenses. The results are consistent with the “synergy governance” hypothesis whereby common institutional owners are able to leverage their advantages of industry information and supervisory experience to improve the information environment and corporate governance of the firms they hold. Overall, in China’s market, common institutional owners play an active external governance role and effectively improve M&A quality.

The existing literature studies the relationship between institutional investors and the risk of stock price crash from multiple dimensions. Based on the phenomenon that institutional investors hold the shares of several listed companies in the same industry, this paper takes the A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2008 to 2018 as the research samples to explore the relationship between institutional common ownership and stock price crash risk. The results show that: institutional common ownership significantly increases the risk of stock price crash. After a series of robustness tests, the conclusion remains unchanged. The impact mechanism test shows that institutional common ownership improves the stock price synchronization, investor sentiment and stock liquidity, and then aggravates the risk of stock price crash. Further tests show that the higher the product market competition, the more media coverage, and the weaker the protection of regional investors, the positive impact of institutional common ownership on the risk of stock price crash is more significant.

We ask whether CFO's managerial skills affect corporate tax avoidance using a sample of Chinese-listed companies. To that end, we develop a CFO managerial skills index based on four dimensions of the CFO's work experience: (1) the number of current positions a CFO holds, (2) the number of functional departments a CFO has worked in during his career, (3) the number of firms he has worked for, and (4) whether the CFO has political connections. We find that CFOs with high managerial skills are more likely to engage in aggressive tax avoidance. This effect is weakened when CFOs are in their first year of employment, approaching retirement, and are too busy. Moreover, we find that CFOs with general management skills are more likely to adjust corporate tax avoidance to levels similar to their peers.

This study investigates Chinese equity mutual funds’ performances while holding those that are well behaved in financial disclosure (transparent) companies, so-called peace of mind investing. This study uses detailed semi-annual data on mutual funds from 2011 to 2020, and finds that holding these transparent companies’ stocks is profitable for mutual funds and trusted by investors, thereby boosting their inflows. However, there is no significant evidence that mutual funds can beat the market portfolio when fees are considered. The study then provides possible explanations for the above findings from mutual fund managers’ skills and mutual holdings between institutional shareholders of fund management and transparent companies.

This paper investigates the intertemporal relation between expected aggregate stock market returns and conditional variance considering periodic trading breaks. We propose a modified version of Merton’s intertemporal asset pricing model that merges two different processes driving asset prices, (i) a continuous process modeling diffusive risk during the trading day and, (ii) a discontinuous process modeling overnight price changes of random magnitude. Relying on high-frequency data, we estimate distinct premia for diffusive trading volatility and volatility induced by overnight jumps. While diffusive trading volatility plays a minor role in explaining the expected market risk premium, overnight jumps carry a significant risk premium and establish a positive risk-return trade-off. Our study thereby contributes to the ongoing debate on the sign of the intertemporal risk-return relation.

This paper investigates the trading behavior of ambiguity-loving investors and the corresponding impacts on asset price. The ambiguity-loving attitude increases investors' willingness to participate in the risky asset market. Their rising participation gradually crowds out ambiguity-averse and sophisticated investors, extending their nonparticipation region. When the market supply is small, the discontinuous and non-unique properties of ambiguity-loving investors' demand mapping can cause flat ranges in the equilibrium price. When the market supply is moderate or large, an increase in the fraction of ambiguity-loving investors or ambiguity level reduces equity premium. We find the effect of ambiguity-loving attitudes remains with short-sales constraints except for ambiguity-loving investors' positions and the equity premium. Their positions shrink, and equity premium decreases when the market supply is small. Besides, the rising fraction of ambiguity-level investors and ambiguity level increases equity premium when ambiguity-loving investors with heterogenous opinions only sell the risky asset.