In the Chinese context, the term “overseas” refers to countries and regions outside the sovereignty and jurisdiction of China. Overseas listing is an important strategy for firms to integrate into global capital markets and enhance their corporate investment efficiency. Using data from 600 Chinese companies listed exclusively overseas and 860 domestically listed firms for the period 2009–2023, this study analyzes the impact of overseas listing on corporate investment efficiency using empirical research methods, underlying mediating mechanisms, and the moderating role of economic policy uncertainty. The findings show that overseas listing improves Chinese firms’ investment efficiency. Compared to listing on the United States securities market (Nshares), listing on the Hong Kong securities market, (H-shares) has a pronounced effect on enhancing investment efficiency. Enhanced information disclosure quality improves the investment efficiency of Chinese enterprises listed overseas. Economic policyuncertainty can strengthen the positive impact of overseas listing on corporate investment efficiency. This study shows that overseas listing improves investment efficiency of firms in developing countries and offers new insights into advancing micro-level opening-up in these countries.

Purpose: High investment efficiency is a key dimension of high-quality enterprise development. As critical nodes embedded in supply chain networks, corporate investment behaviors are profoundly shaped by the structural characteristics of their supply chains. Concentrated supply chain configuration, as one of the core structural features, has not yet been systematically examined in terms of its impact on corporate investment efficiency and the underlying mechanisms, leaving an important research gap. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a sample of China’s A-share listed enterprises from 2007 to 2023, this study empirically examines the effect of concentrated supply chain configuration on corporate investment efficiency. Findings: First, concentrated supply chain configuration exerts a significant inhibitory effect on corporate investment efficiency, a conclusion that remains robust after a series of tests. Second, mechanism tests indicate that this influence operates primarily through three channels: exacerbating financing constraints, crowding out working capital, and deteriorating the information environment. Third, heterogeneity analysis shows that both supplier concentration and customer concentration inhibit investment efficiency, with the latter having a slightly stronger negative effect. The adverse impact is more pronounced in over-investing enterprises, non-state-owned enterprises, smaller firms, and those in growth or decline stages. Furthermore, regional factor market development, external market power, and internal control quality are found to effectively mitigate the negative effect of concentrated supply chain configuration on corporate investment efficiency. Originality: This study extends the research on determinants of corporate investment efficiency from a supply chain structure perspective, providing new theoretical insights and empirical evidence for understanding corporate investment behavior in China.

This paper examines the role of institutional investors in shaping pricing dynamics within China’s nascent infrastructure Real Estate Investment Trust market. Introduced in 2021, China’s REITs have rapidly gained policy and market attention as a tool for financing large-scale infrastructure projects through equity-based securitisation. Unlike mature REIT markets, China’s infrastructure REITs are characterised by a high concentration of institutional ownership dominated by state-owned financial institutions. Using panel data on first 9 REITs from May 2021 to April 2024, we find that institutional ownership significantly boosts the premium to net asset value. This effect operates primarily through two channels: reduced market liquidity and increased idiosyncratic return volatility, likely reflecting institutions’ trading activity and informational advantages. The findings highlight how institutional capital serves as a confidence signal in China’s emerging REITs ecosystem. The study contributes to the global REITs literature by offering insights from an emerging market context and provides policy recommendations to guide China’s REITs market development toward greater transparency, diversity, and long-term resilience.

Purpose The study investigates the impact of government intervention policy of capital markets (“National Team”) on firms’ sustainable management, i.e., green mergers and acquisitions (GMAs) in China, aiming to understand how such interventions influence corporate investment activities amidst a growing focus on green transition. Design/methodology/approach The research employs a dynamic analysis of quarterly data from Chinese companies (2014 Q1 to 2022 Q4), utilizing identified strategies, such as double machine learning-DID and multiple panel data regressions to assess the effects of government intervention on GMAs, and examines potential economic channels like liquidity, market stabilization, and informativeness. Findings The study finds that increased government intervention via direct stock purchases significantly boosts both the number and amount of GMAs, with economic significance of 23% and 45%, respectively. It identifies liquidity, market stability, and informativeness efficiency as underlying economic channels for this effect. Practical implications The findings suggest that government interventions can enhance corporate investment in green sectors, guiding firms to align strategies with sustainability goals. This can inform policymakers regarding the effectiveness of direct stock purchases in fostering a green economy, especially for large emerging countries. Social implications By promoting GMAs, government interventions contribute to green innovation and energy transition, ultimately benefiting society through enhanced environmental sustainability and compliance with eco-friendly regulations. Originality/value This research uniquely documents the direct effects of government stock purchases on corporate green financial activities, particularly GMAs, in a Chinese context characterized by tight credit, thereby expanding the understanding of government intervention in emerging markets.

This study employs a Triple-Difference (Triple-DID) model, utilizing balanced panel data at the district level from Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou between 2018 and 2024, to critically evaluate the effectiveness of the Multi-School Zoning Policy (MSZP) in suppressing the capitalization of educational resources into housing prices and promoting educational equity. The research explicitly accounts for spatial and institutional heterogeneity as well as household strategic behavior.The results indicate that: (1) MSZP significantly reduced the average housing price premium associated with elite school districts by 15.2%, with the strongest effect observed in Beijing and the weakest in Hangzhou; (2) The policy's effectiveness diminishes as the spatial concentration of high-quality educational resources increases, highlighting persistent structural inequalities; (3) In areas characterized by resource monopolization and strong institutional inertia, the policy's suppressive effect on educational capitalization and its gains in educational equity are both constrained.The findings suggest that MSZP alone cannot fully overcome the "spatial lock-in" effect of high-quality educational resources. Achieving lasting equity requires complementary deeper institutional innovations, such as robust cross-district teacher rotation, transparent resource allocation mechanisms, and adaptive zoning algorithms. This research offers quantitative evidence for optimizing policy and institutional tools in the pursuit of comprehensive urban education reform.

We construct the most comprehensive bankruptcy database of Chinese firms to date and document significant real effects arising from the establishment of specialized bankruptcy courts. Specifically, the recovery rate for unsecured creditors increases by 38.6 percentage points after the reform. This improvement is not driven by shorter case durations or lower direct bankruptcy costs, as intuition might suggest. Instead, it results primarily from greater efficiency in the discovery and disposal of assets during bankruptcy proceedings. The reform also increases the likelihood of reorganization and promotes capital infusion in such cases. Higher recovery rates generate broader spillovers: reductions in non-performing loans, expansion of unsecured lending by local banks, relaxation of firms’ financial constraints, shifts in capital structure and investment, and greater public willingness to file for bankruptcy when distressed.

This study investigates the impact of Total Factor Productivity(TFP) growth in China's high-tech industry on household consumption, examining the distinct roles of labor and capital factor productivity from the perspective of biased technological progress. We innovatively construct a sequential proportional NDDF-Luenberger index. This index not only provides a theoretically consistent measure of TFP but also enables its precise decomposition into labor factor productivity and capital factor productivity, allowing for the quantitative identification of the degree and direction of technological bias. Our analysis yields three key findings. First, China's high-tech industry TFP evolved through a three-phase pattern of "surge–retreat–recovery," characterized by persistent capital-biased technological progress. Second, at the national level, improvements in overall TFP, labor factor productivity, and capital factor productivity all significantly promote household consumption, validating the theoretical pathway where supply-side efficiency gains stimulate demand. Third, significant regional heterogeneity exists: the Eastern region exhibits a "capital-led" growth pattern with weaker consumption effects from labor productivity; the Central and Western regions show "factor synergy," where both productivities contribute to consumption; whereas the Northeastern region suffers from a blocked transmission mechanism, where technological progress fails to significantly boost local consumption due to insufficient integration with the regional economy. By integrating supply-side TFP with demand-side consumption through the lens of biased technological progress, this research provides critical insights for fostering a virtuous cycle between innovation and domestic demand, offering valuable implications for industrial and regional policy design aimed at sustainable and inclusive growth.

This study applies the generalized dynamic factor model (GDFM), TVPVAR-DY framework, and pattern causality to investigate spillover effect from international commodity idiosyncratic volatility co-movements to China's financial market risk, as well as the impact of a series of macroeconomic factors on such spillover effect. The empirical results indicate that the idiosyncratic volatility co-movements of energy, industrial metals, precious metals, soft commodities, and agricultural products all have significant spillover effects on China's financial market risk. The influence of commodity idiosyncratic co-movements on China’s financial market risk is relatively stable under normal economic conditions but intensifies significantly during periods of deteriorating economic fundamentals. Macroeconomic factors such as international capital flows, investor sentiment, geopolitical risks, economic conditions, and international freight rates predominantly exhibit a positive causal effect on the dynamic spillover effect.

This paper investigates how the geographical distribution of shareholders in Chinese mutual fund management companies influences investment decisions. We show that mutual funds are more inclined to hold and overweight stocks from regions where their shareholders are located, thus capitalizing on a local information advantage. By examining changes in fund holdings in response to shifts in the shareholder base, we rule out the possibility that these effects are driven by fund managers’ local biases. Our findings reveal that stocks from the same region as the fund’s shareholders tend to outperform and significantly contribute to the fund’s overall performance.

Utilizing microevaluation data on the extent to which firms advance the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provided by Robeco, this paper examines the influence of corporate sustainability on stock price performance and its underlying economic mechanisms. The empirical results suggest that firms’ sustainability has a significant negative effect on excess returns, particularly the contribution of firms to the social dimension of sustainability. Firms’ SDG performance can alleviate financing constraints and reduce financial risk, but it does not significantly enhance financial performance, leading to market capital outflows from high SDG-performing firms, especially from individual investors. Furthermore, our results suggest that high SDG-performing firms are undervalued and do not increase the information content in their stock prices, which may be the main reason for the negative effect of SDG performance. We also conduct a series of heterogeneity tests, which show that firms from regions with high environmental regulatory intensity and less economic development, as well as heavily polluting firms and firms with poorer information environments, experience greater negative effects. These findings have implications for investors to properly understand corporate sustainability and for regulators to promote the development of a low-carbon economy.