We investigate whether a firm’s decision on green bond issuances is influenced by the green bond issuances by other firms in the same industry. We find that a firm is significantly more likely to issue green bonds after observing that other firms in the same industry have previously issued green bonds. This effect cannot be explained by the issuer’s supplement to their previous issuances, incentive policies, and industry competition. Furthermore, we show that issuing green bonds can bring significant positive stock excess returns, which increases the motivation for institutional investors to learn and drive other firms in the same industry they hold to issue green bonds. Our findings indicate that the peer effect can be driven by social learning of the common ownership among firms and explain the reason for the rapid increase in green bond issuance.

This paper investigates how institutional investors’ site visits affect firm productivity by using a dataset of China’s A-share listed firms. The findings reveal that site visits have a constructive effect on firm productivity. Moreover, mechanism analysis indicates that reducing information asymmetry and improving stock price informativeness are two channels through which site visits influence firm productivity. Heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that the nexus between site visits and firm productivity is more pronounced for non-state-owned firms and firms with intenser product market competition. Overall, this study brings new insights into the benefits of site visits and highlights the importance of investor activism.

China's SMIC and Taiwan's TSMC are caught on opposite sides of the "Global Chip War." TSMC, despite having extensive commercial ties and fabs in the Mainland, is a beneficiary of U.S. efforts to stifle competition from Mainland competitors like SMIC. Geopolitical considerations, therefore, are increasingly influencing TSMC’s business decisions, as shown by TSMC’s construction of fabs in Japan and the United States despite founder Morris Chang’s longstanding opposition to overseas fabs due to their high costs. SMIC, meanwhile, is the Mainland’s best hope for creating a “red chip supply chain” and achieving 70% semiconductor self-sufficiency via domestic suppliers, which has taken on even more importance due to U.S. sanctions on advanced chips for AI model development. This article analyzes SMIC founder Richard Chang’s dream of building a red chip giant on the Mainland that can rival or even replace TSMC, which will directly conflict with Chang's former co-worker and fellow Taiwanese Morris Chang’s dream of solidifying TSMC and Taiwan’s position as the irreplaceable center of the semiconductor industry well into the 21st century.

Shill bidding, the use of non-genuine bids to inflate prices, undermines auction market integrity. Exploiting China’s online judicial housing auctions as a laboratory, we identify 2% of participants as suspected shill bidders, affecting 8% of auctions. They raise price premium by 14.3%, causing an annual deadweight loss of ¥570 million for homebuyers. Mechanism analysis reveals they create bidding momentum and intensify competition. We establish causality using a difference-in-differences analysis leveraging a 2017 regulatory intervention and an instrumental variable approach using dishonest judgment debtors. These findings offer actionable insights for policymakers and auction platforms to combat fraud in online high-stake auctions.

We find evidence that firms engage in earnings management to potentially diminish environmental regulatory attention after the implementation of an automatic air pollutant monitoring system in China. Polluting firms increase their use of discretionary accruals and reduce the informativeness of earnings, compared to non-polluting firms. Polluting firms that are larger, more profitable, located near monitoring stations, and situated in less market-oriented regions exhibit heightened earnings management, consistent with the greater environmental regulatory exposure these firms face. The behavior is moderated by stronger customer-supplier relationships and lower market competition, when the cost of earnings management is higher. Our findings highlight the conflict between environmental and governance issues.

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.

Using firm-customer matched data from 2005 to 2020 in China, we examined the spillover effects and mechanisms of green innovation (GI) among supply chain partners. Results show a positive association between customers' GI and their supply firms' GI, indicating spillover effects in the supply chain. Customers' GI increase from the 25th to the 75th percentile leads to a significant 19% increase in supply firms' GI. Certain conditions amplify the spillover effect, including customers with higher bargaining power, operating in less competitive industries, and supply firms making relationship-specific investments or experiencing greater customer stability. Geographic proximity and shared ownership further enhance the spillover effect. Information-based and competition-based channels drive the spillover effect, while customers with higher GI encourage genuine GI activities by supply firms. External environmental regulations, such as the Chinese Green Credit Policy and Environmental Protection Law, strengthen the spillover effect, supporting the Porter hypothesis. This research expands understanding of spillover effects in the supply chain and contributes to the literature on GI determinants.

We propose a sufficient statistics approach to measuring Ricardian comparative advantage in a quantitative trade model featuring cross-country differences in productivity, factor prices, market size, as well as monopolistic competition, endogenous markups, and firm heterogeneity. The model’s micro-foundations do not necessarily imply that the relevant data for the proposed sufficient statistics must include micro information, but its micro-structure is needed to understand how only macro information can be used instead. Applying the approach to Chinese microdata and cross-country macrodata, we show that imperfect competition with endogenous markups and firm heterogeneity have far-reaching implications for correctly measuring Ricardian comparative advantage.

Using data from Chinese A-share listed firms from 2015 to 2022, we employ a difference-in-differences model to empirically examine the impact of bankruptcy regimes, marked by the establishment of bankruptcy courts, on firms’ total factor productivity (TFP). The results show a significant decline in TFP among firms in regions following the establishment of bankruptcy courts. This finding remains valid after a series of robustness tests. Mechanism tests reveal that establishing bankruptcy courts increases firms’ risk aversion incentives by endowing creditors with excessive rights. Consequently, firms tend to reduce liabilities, curtail R&D investment, and accumulate liquid assets as coping measures, ultimately contributing to a decline in TFP. Furthermore, this effect is more pronounced for firms with high financial risk. However, the improvement of the market mechanism can alleviate the negative impact of bankruptcy courts excessively strengthening creditor protection. Specifically, when firms are located in regions with weak government intervention and strong financial development, as well as in market environments with low uncertainty and strong competition, this negative impact can be mitigated. These findings provide fresh insights into the dual nature of creditor protection and offer valuable references for governments to improve the bankruptcy legal system.

This study examines how localized carbon reduction policies affect corporate environmental productivity. Leveraging a quasi-experiment from China’s low-carbon pilot policy rollout across cities, we implement a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the causal impact of these interventions. Pilot policies significantly increased regulated polluting corporate environmental productivity by around 3 percentage points. The productivity gains persisted over time and were greater for financially constrained firms, firms facing less market competition and with lower capital intensity. Additional analysis reveals the pilots enhanced executive environmental awareness. Overall, our results demonstrate appropriately designed local regulations can improve environmental productivity.