Utilizing a dataset from 2013 to 2022 on China’s listed companies, we explored whether a hedge fund network could help explain the occurrence of Chinese stock crash. First, this study constructs a hedge fund network based on common holdings. Then, from the perspective of network centrality, we examine the effect of hedge fund network on stock crash risk and its mechanism. Our findings show that companies with greater network centrality experience lower stock crash risk. Such results remain valid after alternating measures, using the propensity score matching method, and excluding other network effects. We further document that the centrality of hedge fund network reduces crash risk through three channels: information asymmetry, stock price information content and information delay. In addition, the negative effect of hedge fund network centrality on crash risk is more prominent for non-SOEs firms. In summary, our research shed light on the important role of hedge fund information network in curbing stock crash.

China commodity futures market network is constructed. Commodity is the node of the network, and the network link is defined by the price correlation matrix. We analyze the relationship between the centrality of each commodity in the commodity futures market network and the optimal weight of the commodity portfolio, empirically examine the market system factors and commodity personalized factors that affect the centrality of commodity, and evaluate the effect of network structure on the optimization of commodity portfolio selection under the mean-variance framework. It is found that the commodities with high network centrality are often related to industrial products and have high volatility. Commodities with higher centrality have lower portfolio weights. We put forward a kind of commodity futures investment strategy based on network, according to the network centricity grouping the commodities, the network centricity lower edge of the commodity structure of the portfolio, cumulative yield is better than that of centricity higher core product portfolio, the whole market portfolio yield, but due to large maximum retracement, lead to the stability and ability to resist risk compared with the other two groups of goods combination. The main contribution of this paper is to optimize portfolio selection by establishing the relationship between portfolio weight and commodity centrality by using commodity futures market network as a tool.

The finance–growth nexus has been a central question in understanding the unprecedented success of the Chinese economy. With unique data on all the registered firms in China, we build extensive ownership networks, reflecting firm-to-firm equity investment relationships, and show that thesenetworks have been expanding rapidly since the 2000s, with more than five million firms in at least one network by 2017. Entering a network and increasing network centrality, both globally and locally, are associated with higher firm growth. Such positive network effects tend to be more pronounced for high productivity and privately owned firms. The RMB 4 trillion stimulus, mostly in the form of newly issued bank loans and launched by the Chinese government in November 2008 in response to the global financial crisis, partially ‘crowded out’ the positive network effects. Our analysis suggests that equity ownership networks and bank credit tend to act as substitutes for state-owned enterprises, but as complements for privately owned firms in promoting growth.