We collect the geographical dataset of bank physical branch in China from 2008 to 2023, obtaining the 261,382 branches. Through careful data processing, we calculate the bank branch closure at city-level and merge it with regional entrepreneurship in China. With the panel dataset at city-industry-year level, we find that bank branch closure (BBC) significantly reduces neighbor entrepreneurship, which is proxied by the number of new firm entry. In mechanism analysis, we document that bank branch closure affects entrepreneurship through the financing channel and mobility channel. We also find that commercial bank branch closure plays a crucial role in affecting entrepreneurship. The reduction effect of BBC is more pronounced for those observations located in geographical intersections, coastal lines. Further, we explore the impact of BBC on the direction of entrepreneurship, showing that there is less new firm formation in manufacture industry after the BBC. In addition, we show that BBC may contribute to the entrepreneurship failure as well. Our findings may shed light on the policy makers, bank owners and those who want to form a new firm.

We investigate the relationship between the intensity of intraday return reversals and future stock returns in the Chinese stock market. We find that a high frequency of positive overnight returns followed by negative daytime returns predicts one-month ahead returns positively. The analysis shows that daytime retail investors tend to overly sell their own rising stocks at market open, accepting lower stock prices in exchange for liquidity. As the price pressure attenuates, these stocks experience subsequent price increases, implying a positive relationship between return reversals and future returns.

The influence of informal institutions such as history and culture on corporate behavior has been widely recognized, but few studies have been analyzed from the perspective of the ruling party culture. Based on the data of the old revolutionary base areas (ORBA) in China, this paper makes an empirical test on the role of Red Culture in promoting enterprises green innovation. First, this paper finds that the stronger the Red Culture in the region where the enterprise is located, the higher the level of green innovation.Secondly, in the samples with high political sensitivity and less cultural conflict, the promoting effect of Red Culture is more obvious. This paper not only expands the relevant literature on the influence of informal system on enterprise green innovation, but also enriches the research on the influence of Chinese unique culture on enterprise management decision-making.

This study investigates the impact of early leadership experiences on innovation performance in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China. Using Enterprise Survey for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in China (ESIEC) cross-sectional datasets, it examines the mediating role of psychological traits and the moderating effect of age in this relationship. The analysis employs fixed effects models to control for regional and industry-specific unobserved characteristics. Results indicate a significant positive relationship between early leadership experiences and innovation, with psychological traits mediating this relationship strongly in younger entrepreneurs. For older entrepreneurs, early leadership has a more direct and stronger impact on innovation. These findings underscore the importance of early leadership development in education phase and suggest that the influence and pathways evolve with age, offering particular insights into the formation and application of social and human capital in the entrepreneurial journey

Previousresearch on internal mobility has neglected the role of local identity contrary to studies analyzing international migration. Examining social identity and labor market outcomes in China, the country with the largest internal mobility in the world, closes the gap. Instrumental variable estimation and careful robustness checks suggest that identifying as local associates with higher migrants’ hourly wages and lower hours worked, although monthly earnings seem to remain largely unchanged. Migrants with strong local identity are more likely to use local networks in job search, and to obtain jobs with higher average wages and lower average hours worked, suggesting the value of integration policies.

In this study, we investigate the impact of the development of the digital economy on corporate innovation and value using data of listed firms in China spanning the years 2011 to 2018. Our findings reveal a positive correlation between the development of the digital economy and corporate innovative activities, with a more pronounced effect observed in growth-stage firms, labor-intensive enterprises, and companies situated in underdeveloped regions. To establish a causal relationship, we employ a quasi-experimental approach utilizing the "Broadband China" pilot program. Using a difference-in-difference framework, we establish a causal link between the advancement of the digital economy and the increased innovative activities. Furthermore, our research underscores that digital economy development enhances firm value by promoting innovative activities. These results support the view that the digital economy plays a pivotal role in increasing firm value and fostering sustainable development in the overall economy.

Fintech has significantly influenced the traditional financial industry by introducing advanced technologies and innovative business models with profound impacts. We aim to study the effect of Fintech development on labor allocation efficiency, and to explore its underlying mechanisms. Using a set of companies on Chinese A-share market over the years of 2011- 2020, we find that Fintech development plays a positive role in labor allocation efficiency, mainly through suppressing labor overinvestment. This positive effect is further reinforced by market competition. In addition, our investigation reveals that the primary pathways through which Fintech enhances labor allocation efficiency are lowering information asymmetry, mitigating agency issues and substituting low-skilled labor. Moreover, we show that the dimensions of depth and digitalization are particularly important in improving labor allocation efficiency among the three dimensions of Fintech development. Lastly, we find that Fintech development enhances total factor productivity by improving labor allocation efficiency.

While a wide range of managerial practices suggest that coopetition plays a crucial role in advancing firm innovation, how this effect occurs and the boundary conditions remain unclear. The literature revealing the specific mechanisms by which inter-firm coopetition affects firm innovation, including mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions, is still insufficient. By integrating the resource dependence theory and the capability view, this study explores how firm agility links inter-firm coopetition and open innovation within industrial clusters. In addition, based on conceptualizing coopetition as a concept containing three elements (cooperation, constructive conflict, and destructive conflict), this study examines government intervention in industrial clusters as a boundary factor and explores how it affects the relationship between inter-firm coopetition and firm agility. Based on the analysis of a sample of 181 industrial cluster firms in China, the results of this study show that firm agility mediates the relationship between cooperation, constructive conflict, and open innovation, respectively, and that government intervention diminishes both the facilitating effect of constructive conflict on firm agility and the negative effect of destructive conflict on firm agility. The findings contribute to the understanding of how and when coopetition affects open innovation and provide a theoretical basis for firms to utilize coopetition to innovate successfully.

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.

This paper is the first to examine the evolution of price discovery in agricultural commodity markets across the four distinct phases determined by trade friction and trade policy uncertainty. Using cointegrated vector autoregressive model and common factor weights, we report that corn, cotton, soybean meal, and sugar (palm oil, soybean, soybean oil, and wheat) futures (spot) play a dominant role in price discovery during the full sample period. Moreover, the leadership in price discovery evolves over time in conjunction with changes in trade friction phases. However, such results vary across commodities. We also report that most of the agricultural commodity markets are predominantly led by futures markets in price discovery during phase Ⅲ, except for the wheat market. Our results indicate that taking trade friction into consideration would benefit portfolio managements and diversifying agricultural trade partners holds significance.