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.

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.

We empirically investigate the impact of state ownership on the private economic value and the scientific value of Chinese publicly listed firms’ innovation from 2003 to 2020, and explore its mechanism. We show that the stock-market-based methodology of estimating patent value proposed by Kogan et al. (2017) applies to the Chinese economy, and follow their approach to evaluate patents issued to Chinese listed firms. Using this new data and patent citation data, we find that state-owned enterprises have lower private value of innovation than non-state-owned enterprises, while their scientific values of innovation are not significantly different. We also provide evidence that the state-owned enterprises’ low profit-oriented R&D performance is due to their insufficient capabilities rather than ownership-specific corporate objectives.

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.

The discussion on the innovative effects of intellectual property pledge financing is a mainstream trend. In this context, this study has improved the existing research from several aspects, such as broadening the dimensions of innovation, adding dynamic analysis, refining multidimensional mediation mechanisms, and employing unique samples. Ultimately, we come to the following conclusions: (1) Intellectual property pledge financing suppresses enterprise innovation, especially innovation quality, but this pattern will be broken by raising the threshold of innovation conditions. The reason is that strict innovation conditions can lead to a poor innovation foundation for enterprises, which are rarely affected by the fluctuation of funds obtained from intellectual property pledge financing. (2) Intellectual property pledge financing has a non-linear effect on firm innovation, characterized by an increase followed by a decrease, suggesting that intellectual property pledge financing in current China can only provide a temporary stimulus for firm innovation. (3) The relationship between intellectual property pledge financing and enterprise innovation is strongly moderated by the ownership, type, and size of the enterprise, with the inhibitory effect of intellectual property pledge financing on enterprise innovation occurring mainly in state-owned enterprises, high-tech enterprises, and small enterprises, while its positive effects are more pronounced in private enterprises, non-high-tech enterprises, and medium-sized enterprises. (4) Financing constraints, internal incentives, external supervision, and signaling mechanisms are indeed key pathways through which intellectual property pledge financing affects firm innovation, especially when we analyse these mechanisms using dynamic models.

This study investigates the link between market arbitrage risk and liquidity risk pricing in a conditional asset pricing framework. We estimate comparative models both at the portfolio and firm level in the Chinese A- and B-shares to test behavioral hypotheses with respect to foreign ownership restrictions and market segmentation. Results show that conditional liquidity premium and risk betas exhibit pronounced asymmetry across share classes which could be attributed to differentiated levels of market mispricing. Specifically, stocks with a greater degree of information asymmetry and retail ownership are more sensitive to liquidity risks when the market arbitrage risk increase. Further policy impact analysis shows that China’s market liberalization efforts, contingent upon its recent stock connect programs, conditionally reduce the price of liquidity risk for connected stocks.

Facing external shocks, maintaining and stabilizing imports is a major practical issue for many developing countries. We first document that sourcing market switching (SMS) is widespread for Chinese firms (For 2000-2016, SMS firms account for 76.29% of all import firms and 96.30% of total import value). Then we use Chinese firm-level data to show that SMS can significantly mitigate the negative impacts of international uncertainty on imports, which further stabilizes firm employment and innovation, leading to increases in national and even world welfare. Possible motivations for SMS include stabilizing import supply, lowering import tariffs, raising the real exchange rate, and increasing product switching. We also find that the effects of SMS vary by the type of uncertainty, firm ownership, productivity, credit constraints, trade mode, and product features.

Using firm-customer matched data from 2005 to 2020 in China, we examined the spillover effects and mechanisms of green innovation (GI) among supply chain partners. Results show a positive association between customers' GI and their supply firms' GI, indicating spillover effects in the supply chain. Customers' GI increase from the 25th to the 75th percentile leads to a significant 19% increase in supply firms' GI. Certain conditions amplify the spillover effect, including customers with higher bargaining power, operating in less competitive industries, and supply firms making relationship-specific investments or experiencing greater customer stability. Geographic proximity and shared ownership further enhance the spillover effect. Information-based and competition-based channels drive the spillover effect, while customers with higher GI encourage genuine GI activities by supply firms. External environmental regulations, such as the Chinese Green Credit Policy and Environmental Protection Law, strengthen the spillover effect, supporting the Porter hypothesis. This research expands understanding of spillover effects in the supply chain and contributes to the literature on GI determinants.

We examine the impact of state-owned shareholders on fraud within private firms. Utilizing a sample of A-share private listed firms in China observed from 2008 to 2021. We discover a significant negative association between state-owned shareholders and the likelihood of fraud in private firms. State-owned shareholders primarily act as inhibitors of fraud, and their effect on the probability of fraud being detected is not statistically significant. This finding remains robust even after conducting a series of sensitivity tests to mitigate potential selectivity bias and reverse causality endogeneity issues. In the analysis of heterogeneity, we found that state-owned shareholders play a more active role under conditions of imperfect external institutional development, and they also exert a more significant inhibitory effect on enterprises with lower governance levels and higher business risks. Our mechanism test demonstrates that the inhibitory effect of state-owned shareholders on corporate fraud is achieved by improving corporate governance and alleviating financial distress. This study also examines the impact of state-owned shareholders' local characteristics, external supervision mechanisms, and internal governance mechanisms in unique Chinese enterprises on fraudulent behaviour by private enterprises. Overall, our study provides empirical evidence that state-owned shareholder ownership is associated with reducing fraudulent behaviour within private firms.

Based on the sample of Chinese A-listed firms from 2003 to 2020, this paper investigates the effect of common institutional ownership on labor income share. The result shows that common institutional ownership can significantly increase firms’ labor income share. Mechanism tests indicate that common ownership can: 1) alleviate financial constraints by reducing the debt financing costs and increasing the trade credit financing, thus increasing the labor income share; 2) improve corporate innovation and therefore enhances the demand for highly-skilled labor, which eventually boost labor income share. Competitive hypothesis test represents that common institutional ownership can reduce the monopoly power of enterprises and decrease monopoly rent, so as to increase the proportion of labor in the distribution. Further analyses present that the network formed by the common ownership can effectively exert the financing support role of SOEs and the knowledge spillover effect of innovative-advantage firms, which contributes to the labor income share increasing of other related firms in the network connection. This study not only enriches the economic consequences of common institutional ownership, but also provides policy guidance for the government to further optimize the income-distribution pattern by deepening the reform of the financial market.