Does large-scale privatization increase income inequality? To answer this question, we analyze the impact of China’s reform of state-owned enterprises on labor market outcomes in urban areas from 1992 to 2004, exploiting cross-prefecture variation in reform exposure stemming from initial differences in the employment shares of urban collective enterprises and state-owned enterprises. Our analysis reveals that workers in prefectures with higher exposure to the reform experienced a more rapid decline in employment and a slower increase in income, compared to those in less exposed areas. Further analysis shows that individuals with lower income and those with lower educational attainment experienced greater losses. A backof-the-envelope analysis indicates that the reform contributed to more than 40% of the study period’s increase in income inequality.

China’s listed companies often exchange corporate assets with their unlisted affiliates such as parent companies, which is rarely observed in their American counterparts. We find that listed companies which are incompletely restructured from former state-owned enterprises tend to exchange more profitable assets for less profitable assets (i.e., tunneling). However, when there is a need to avoid reporting losses and to raise additional capital, listed companies tend to exchange less profitable assets for more profitable assets (i.e., propping). We also find that the market reacts indifferently to assets exchange announcement. Finally, we find that assets exchange with tunneling (propping) incentive is associated with detrimental (improved) post-exchange stock performance and financial performance. In summary, this study contributes to the corporate assets literature by providing two new incentives (tunneling and propping).

“并购论坛”是由中山大学管理学院发起举办的一次高水平并购国际学术会议。本次会议将于2009年11月14-15日在广州中山大学举办，主题为“价值创造、产业重组与经济安全”。全称为“Mergers and Acquisitions Forum 2009: Value Creation, Industry Restructure and Economic Safety”，主题是在经济学、金融学、工商管理等领域进行国际性的学术交流，内容涉及并购与价值创造、产业重组与产业升级、产业重组与经济转型、外资并购与经济安全等多方面。计划邀请来自美国、英国、新加坡等国家和香港、澳门、台湾等地区的20名左右国际学者参加。

Prior to April 2005, only one third of the shares issued by exchange-listed companies in China are publicly tradable. The other two thirds, mainly owned by Chinese government agencies or government-linked enterprises, are prohibited from public trading. On April 29, 2005, the Chinese Securities Regulatory Committee announced a reform plan that aims to abolish the split-share structure by converting all non-tradable shares to be publicly tradable. We investigate the consequences of this unique event and shed light on how increase in share float affects liquidity, speculation and stock prices. Firstly, we find that tradable A-shares command a 60% price premium on average over non-tradable A-shares and this price premium contains both liquidity and speculation components. Secondly, the share structure reform increases share turnover and dampens speculative trading. Relative to control firms, share turnover of restructured firms increases substantially after the reform, with the largest increase (107 %) in firms that had low liquidity and low speculative trading before the reform. In contrast. there is no increase in share turnover of firms that had high liquidity and high speculative trading. Thirdly. stock prices drop substantially on the day when the supply of tradable shares increases due to the reform. Moreover. the higher increase in the supply of tradable A-shares. the larger drop in the stock price. This indicates that the short-term demand curve is downward-sloping. Fourthly. despite the fall in stock prices. shareholder wealth increases by 15% on average. We find that the largest price drop and the smallest wealth gain occurs in firms with the highest speculative trading before the reform. which suggests that share structure reform dampens speculative trading in Chinese market. Lastly, split share reform also benefits the B-share market despite that the reform involves only A shares: B-share turnover increases after the reform and the well-known B share price discount narrows substantially .

Although the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) has been over for many years, the influences of the AFC remain effect the world economy for quite severely. So it is worthy for both the governors and academic to study the lessons from the AFC and then find out some measures to avoid the happening of the crisis. This paper first analyze the causes of the financial crisis and the causes of the AFC, points out the impacts of China, which is the largest transition country in the world and has the situation similar with these Asian countries. This paper also point out some of the measures China can implement to accelerate the restructuring of the banking system.