Based on institutions' general role and the specialty of motivated investors' relatively larger stake, we examine whether ownership by motivated investors is associated with the focal firm's ESG rating disagreement in China. Our results suggest that ownership by motivated investors can decrease the focal firm's ESG rating disagreement. That relationship is strengthened by a better internal or external information environment. What's more, ownership by motivated investors can increase the quality of ESG disclosure and the level of consensus ESG rating. ESG rating disagreement increases stock return volatility and price synchronicity, while motivated investors can mitigate those negative effects. Our results confirm that motivated investors have greater incentive and capability to discipline managers and influence corporate policies and actions even in an emerging market with weak investor protection and the popularity of exploration by ultimate controllers. That would shed valuable insights into the high-quality development of other emerging markets, especially those in south-east Asian.

This study examines the influence of ESG report textual similarity on stock price synchronicity within the Chinese A-share market. Using advanced textual analysis methods, including TF-IDF and LDA, we measure the textual similarity of ESG reports among industry peers. Our results reveal a positive association between ESG report textual similarity and stock price synchronicity, suggesting that ESG reports with high textual resemblance may not convey distinct market information. This research underscores the importance of textual distinctiveness in ESG reports and offers a fresh perspective on the role of non-financial information, particularly related to CSR, in stock pricing dynamics. By emphasizing the significance of ESG report textual distinctiveness, we contribute to the broader discourse on ESG disclosure behaviors and their implications for capital market efficiency.

This study examines the influence of ESG report textual similarity on stock price synchronicity within the Chinese A-share market. Using advanced textual analysis methods, including TF-IDF and LDA, we measure the textual similarity of ESG reports among industry peers. Our results reveal a positive association between ESG report textual similarity and stock price synchronicity, suggesting that ESG reports with high textual resemblance may not convey distinct market information. This research underscores the importance of textual distinctiveness in ESG reports and offers a fresh perspective on the role of non-financial information, particularly related to CSR, in stock pricing dynamics. By emphasizing the significance of ESG report textual distinctiveness, we contribute to the broader discourse on ESG disclosure behaviors and their implications for capital market efficiency.

This paper aims to investigate the transmission mechanism through which trade policy uncertainty (TPU) impacts bank risk-taking via firms’ capital market performance. The research reveals that TPU significantly affects firms’ capital market performance, leading to reduced stock liquidity, increased stock price crash risk, decreased stock price synchronicity, and lower stock returns. These effects are transmitted to bank risk-taking, resulting in an overall increase in banks’ passive risk-taking and a decrease in their willingness to undertake active risk-taking. Furthermore, we discover that the impact of TPU on bank risk-taking varies across different categories of firms, revealing heterogeneity in this transmission process. This study uncovers the critical mechanism through which TPU propagates in financial markets, offering important theoretical insights and policy implications for understanding and managing financial risk.

Using data from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2021, we examined the impact of ESG rating disagreement on stock price synchronicity and its mechanisms. We discovered that ESG rating disagreement increases stock price synchronicity by raising investors' information costs and reducing the efficiency of ESG information incorporation into prices. This effect is more pronounced when average ESG ratings are either low or high. Our findings highlight how ESG rating disagreement affects stock price synchronicity and provide insights for regulators to standardize rating criteria and foster a conducive ESG investment environment, promoting pricing efficiency in the capital markets.

Using the staggered opening of governmental public data platforms in China, we employ the difference-in-difference approach to investigate how public data access affects stock price synchronicity. We find that stock price synchronicity significantly drops after the public data platform is established in a firm’s headquarters city. The underlying mechanism is reducing information acquisition costs rather than increasing market attention or corporate information disclosure quality. Furthermore, the informational role of public data platforms magnifies under higher informed trade risk, poorer corporate governance, or better regional economic and innovation capacity. We highlight the role of public data in facilitating financial market efficiency.

The B-share markets in China, originally for foreign investors only, were opened to local investors in 2001. This reform was expected to improve the information efficiency in B-share markets, since local investors were supposed to be better informed than foreign investors. Meanwhile, we find that, after opening to local investors, B-share price synchronicity increases, and firm-specific return variation (idiosyncratic risk) decreases. Opening B-share markets to local investors fails to improve or even deteriorates the information capitalization of B-share prices. The findings may help us understand Chinese government’s policy making. For instance, in August 2007, Chinese government announced that Chinese citizens would be allowed in public to buy and sell Hong Kong stocks through special accounts with domestic commercial banks. But after hearing opinions from different entities, Chinese government decides to infinitely postpone this policy.