There are large regional disparities in relation to the development of digital finance in China. This study expands on the human–land relationship to analyze the impact of terrain relief on digital finance adoption using China Household Finance Survey data. The results show an inverted U-shaped relationship. Further, mechanism analysis indicates that terrain relief influences the wealth creation environment and stimulates the likelihood of entrepreneurship, especially through small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, the impact is more pronounced in rural and western areas. These findings provide insights enabling the development of a more inclusive financial system.

Based on three key principles, "equity, openness, and sharing," this paper assesses the relationship, and the internal mechanism driving the relationship, between urban inclusiveness and resident entrepreneurship. This includes constructing an urban inclusiveness index, and analyzing data from the 2018 China General Social Survey (CGSS). The key results indicate that multi-perspective urban inclusiveness has a significant positive effect on resident entrepreneurship. The mechanism analysis shows that urban inclusiveness can improve the probability of residents being entrepreneurial, by improving risk attitude, promoting class mobility, and expanding social networks. A heterogeneity analysis shows that urban inclusiveness has a significant impact on the entrepreneurial choice of local residents, and low-class and high-class residents; urban inclusiveness has no significant impact on the entrepreneurial choice of transient residents and middle-class residents. In addition, urban inclusiveness plays a more significant role in promoting residents’ choice of survival entrepreneurship, compared with opportunistic entrepreneurship. The research conclusions have important policy implications for constructing inclusive cities and for promoting innovation and entrepreneurship vitality.

We document a speculation channel through which house market booms negatively affect entrepreneurship. To address endogeneity concerns, we exploit plausibly exogenous variation in house prices generated by staggered and unintended policy spillovers in China. We find house market speculation triggered by house booms crowds out entrepreneurship. Reduced labor supply, reduced capital supply, and heightened entry costs do not appear to explain our main findings. The negative effect exhibits in the OECD countries as well. Our paper complements the well-documented collateral channel by offering novel evidence on a previously under-explored adverse consequence of house market booms – their hindrance to entrepreneurship.

Mainland China traditionally maintained the one-share-one-vote (OSOV) principle. Since 2019, however, Chinese authorities have introduced rules supporting the dual-class equity structure (DCES) for “innovative enterprises.” Due to concerns about investor-protection issues, China’s DCES currently operates as a “stringent permit system,” and as of the end of June 2023, only eight corporations have achieved listings with DCES adopted. This article provides a broad and profound policy analysis of the Chinese DCES system, including empirical analyses on the eight existing DCES cases. Also, this article explores the legal and economic aspects of investor-protection issues with respect to the China’s DCES. Regarding DCES rules in the context of investor protection, this article examines “three sets of investor safeguard measures”: (1) “three numerically speciffed rules” (this article calls the three rules the “10% equity rule,” the “10-time voting-right rule,” and the “2/3 voting-right rule”); (2) “sunset provisions” (such as event-driven sunset and time-based sunset); and (3) “rules converting special-voting shares (shares with higher voting rights) into shares with one vote” (such as conversion in mergers and a conversion in an amendment of the charter). Due to the concerns about the prevailing practice of tunneling in China, this article argues in favor of the “DCES with enhanced investor protection.” To foment founders’ entrepreneurship and allow more corporations with the DCES, however, this article recommends that the Chinese authorities gradually relax the implementation of the current DCES system of de facto stringent permit system. The future relaxation of the stringent permit system will also be beneffcial for China because, as a result of the escalated tension with the U.S., China has already lost a substantial portion of its reliable DCES-IPO markets in the U.S. Also, DCES-IPO markets in Hong Kong is still inactive. Thus, the establishment of viable DCES-IPO markets will soon be necessary in Mainland China.