The commodity and financial characteristics of carbon emission allowances play a pivotal role within the Carbon Emission Trading Scheme (CETS). Evaluating the effectiveness of the scheme from the perspective of carbon price is critical, as it directly reflects the underlying value of carbon allowances. This study employs a time-varying Difference-in-Differences (DID) model, utilizing data from publicly listed enterprises in China over the period from 2010 to 2023, to examine the effects of carbon price level and stability on Total Factor Productivity (TFP). The results suggest that both an increase in carbon price level and stability contribute to improvements in TFP, particularly for heavy-polluting and non-stateowned enterprises. Mechanism analysis reveals that higher carbon prices and stability can stimulate corporate engagement in green innovation, activate the Porter effect, and subsequently enhance TFP. Furthermore, optimizing the system environment proves to be an effective means of strengthening the scheme's impact. The study also finds that allocating initial quotas via payment-based mechanisms offers a more effective design. This research highlights the importance of strengthening the financial attributes of carbon emission allowances and offers practical recommendations for increasing the activity of trading entities and improving market liquidity.

This research examines the impact of short selling on the financing cost of corporate bonds using panel data from Chinese A-share listed companies spanning the period from 2007 to 2022. The study aims to investigate the potential cross-market information spillover effects within the short selling system. The findings indicate that short selling significantly reduces the financing cost of corporate bonds, with a more pronounced effect observed under greater short selling forces. The robustness of the results is confirmed by controlling for various potential influencing factors and addressing the endogeneity issue through Propensity Score Matched Difference in Differences (PSM-DID) methodology. Moreover, the research reveals that the alleviation of information asymmetry serves as the primary mechanism through which short selling exerts its impact, particularly in regions with well-developed financial markets and favorable legal environments. This study offersa novel perspective of short selling in China and it sheds light on its cross-market spillover effects. By effectively enhancing resource allocation efficiency in capital markets, short selling emerges as a potent tool for mitigating information disparities between bond investors and enterprises.

This paper investigates whether and how managers of highly polluting firms adjust their earnings forecast behaviors in response to the introduction of environmental legal institutions. Using the establishment of environmental courts in China as a quasi-natural experiment, our triple difference-in-differences (DID) estimation shows that environmental courts significantly increase the likelihood of management earnings forecasts for highly polluting firms compared to non-highly polluting firms. This association becomes more pronounced for firms with stronger monitoring power, higher environmental litigation risk, and greater earnings uncertainty. Additionally, we show that highly polluting firms improve the precision and accuracy of earnings forecasts following the establishment of environmental courts. Furthermore, we provide evidence that our results do not support the opportunistic perspective that managers strategically issue more positive earnings forecasts to inflate stakeholders‘ expectations subsequent to the implementation of environmental courts. Overall, our research indicates that environmental legal institutions make firms with greater environmental concerns to provide more forward-looking information, thereby alleviating stakeholders’ apprehensions regarding future profitability prospects.

The discussion on the innovative effects of intellectual property pledge financing is a mainstream trend. In this context, this study has improved the existing research from several aspects, such as broadening the dimensions of innovation, adding dynamic analysis, refining multidimensional mediation mechanisms, and employing unique samples. Ultimately, we come to the following conclusions: (1) Intellectual property pledge financing suppresses enterprise innovation, especially innovation quality, but this pattern will be broken by raising the threshold of innovation conditions. The reason is that strict innovation conditions can lead to a poor innovation foundation for enterprises, which are rarely affected by the fluctuation of funds obtained from intellectual property pledge financing. (2) Intellectual property pledge financing has a non-linear effect on firm innovation, characterized by an increase followed by a decrease, suggesting that intellectual property pledge financing in current China can only provide a temporary stimulus for firm innovation. (3) The relationship between intellectual property pledge financing and enterprise innovation is strongly moderated by the ownership, type, and size of the enterprise, with the inhibitory effect of intellectual property pledge financing on enterprise innovation occurring mainly in state-owned enterprises, high-tech enterprises, and small enterprises, while its positive effects are more pronounced in private enterprises, non-high-tech enterprises, and medium-sized enterprises. (4) Financing constraints, internal incentives, external supervision, and signaling mechanisms are indeed key pathways through which intellectual property pledge financing affects firm innovation, especially when we analyse these mechanisms using dynamic models.

环境行政处罚作为环境规制的核心手段，在促进企业绿色创新方面发挥着重要作用。深入探究其影响机制及异质性效应是优化环境政策设计的重要议题。本研究以2010—2019年沪深A股上市公司为研究对象，结合网络爬虫技术获取的环境行政处罚数据，运用Staggered DID（交错双重差分模型）与双变量Tobit模型，分析了政府环境处罚对企业绿色创新的影响机制和异质性作用。研究发现，政府绿色行政处罚对企业绿色创新具有正向积极作用：一方面，绿色发明型专利和实用新型专利的申请数量与质量得到提升；另一方面，该效应在控制企业异质性与动态趋势后依然稳健。进一步的异质性分析表明，相较于大型企业，小型企业在行政处罚后展现出更为敏感的绿色创新响应，尤其是实用新型专利的增长表现更为显著；此外，制造业企业的绿色创新提升幅度显著高于非制造业企业。在中介机制方面，分析发现环境行政处罚主要通过改善企业信息披露透明度和缓解融资约束，间接驱动企业的绿色技术创新。更为重要的是，本文发现PM2. 5污染与行政处罚存在显著的交互作用，凸显了区域环境治理与宏观创新战略协同的重要性。基于研究发现，本文提出以下政策建议：一是优化环境规制工具的差异化设计，二是构建动态信用评级体系，三是加强政策协同。这些研究结论为提升环境规制的精准性、激发企业的绿色转型提供了坚实的理论依据和实证支持。

本文基于2011-2022年城市层面与A股上市公司数据，采用多维面板固定效应模型与双重差分法（DID），系统考察了国外技术引进对企业数字化转型的影响及其作用机制。研究发现，国外技术引进通过技术转移基地的设立显著促进了企业数字化转型，且这一结果在控制了企业特征与城市特征后依然稳健。技术溢出效应是数字化转型的重要中介路径，国外技术引进通过提升数字经济领域专利授权量推动了企业数字化转型，但对专利申请的影响较小。异质性分析表明，国外技术引进对国有企业、参与国际贸易企业以及融资约束较小企业的促进作用更为显著；高技术制造业企业比中低技术制造业企业更易从技术引进中获益，而服务业企业的数字化转型受技术引进的影响较小。城市异质性分析显示，非省会城市、内陆城市以及新基础设施较发达城市的技术引进对企业数字化转型的促进作用更为显著。本文的研究为理解企业数字化转型过程中，国外技术引进的作用提供了经验证据，同时也为相关政策制定提供了重要参考。

本文以2011—2023年A股市场存续的全部股票型ETF基金为样本，基于多期双重差分法（DID）识别流动性服务业务引入对ETF跟踪误差的影响效应。研究发现，引入流动性服务机制可显著降低ETF的跟踪误差，该结论在通过了一系列稳健性检验。机制检验表明，流动性服务商激励改善与市场交易条件优化是跟踪误差降低的主要传导路径，机构投资者比例提升进一步强化流动性服务的政策效应。异质性分析显示，优化复制策略、宽基指数ETF与中小规模产品受益更为显著。进一步研究发现，该机制显著改善了流动性基础薄弱ETF的跟踪误差，缓解了市场“马太效应”。本文从制度演变的视角系统揭示了ETF市场流动性服务机制的微观传导与结构性影响，为提升ETF基金运行质量与健全ETF市场功能提供了实证支持与政策启示。

Enterprise innovation is a hot topic in current academic research. Taking the demonstration city of social credit system construction implemented in China as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper investigates whether the construction of social credit system can improve enterprise innovation. The study finds that the construction of social credit system effectively enhances enterprise innovation. Mechanism test shows that the construction of social credit system escalates the scale and duration of enterprise loans, thereby fostering enterprise innovation. These findings present insights that the pivotal role of informal institutions, such as the social credit system, in facilitating the upgrading of industrial structures and augmenting the quality of economic development.

Why do firms appoint expired independent directors? How do expired independent directors affect corporate governance and thus impact investment decisions? By taking advantage of the sharp increase in expired independent directors’ re-employment in China caused by exogenous regulatory shocks, Rule No. 18 and Regulation 11, this paper adopts a PSM-DID design to test the impact of expired independent directors on CSR performance. We find that firms experience a significant decrease in CSR performance after re-hiring expired independent directors and the effect is stronger for CSR components mostly related to internal governance. The results of robustness tests show that the main results are robust to alternative measures of CSR performance, an extended sample period, alternative control groups, year-by-year PSM method, and a staggered DID model regarding Rule No. 18 as a staggered quasi-natural experiment. We address the endogeneity concern that chance drives our DID results by using exogenous regulatory shock, an instrumental variable (the index of regional guanxi culture), and placebo tests. We also find that the negative relation between the re-employment of expired independent directors and CSR performance is more significant for independent directors who have more relations with CEOs and raise less objection to managers’ decisions, and for firms that rely more on expired independent directors’ monitoring roles (e.g., a lower proportion of independent directors, CEO duality, high growth opportunities, and above-median FCF). The mediating-effect test shows that the re-employment of expired independent directors increases CEOs’ myopia and thus reduces CSR performance. In addition, we exclude the alternative explanation that the negative relation is caused by the protective effect brought by expired independent directors’ political backgrounds. Our study shows that managers may build reciprocal relationships with expired independent directors in the Chinese guanxi culture and gain personal interest.

The reform of the IPO registration system is a crucial step toward the maturity, improvement, and marketization of the securities market. In recent years, the trend of corporate financialization has become increasingly evident. Based on data from firms listed on the ChiNext Market and the Main Board, this paper constructs a Propensity Score Matching-Difference-in-Differences (PSM-DID) model and an RDD-DID model to examine the impact of IPO registration system reform on corporate financialization and analyze its underlying mechanisms from multiple perspectives. The estimation results of both models indicate that the IPO registration system reform has significantly increased firms’ financialization levels. Furthermore, a series of robustness checks confirm the reliability of the findings. The mechanism analysis reveals that the reform has promoted corporate financialization by lowering listing thresholds, alleviating financing constraints, and intensifying market competition. Meanwhile, its information disclosure mechanism has to some extent curbed financialization. Further heterogeneity analysis shows that the reform’s promoting effect is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises, firms with lower growth potential, and those with weaker corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. This study enriches the literature on the policy impact of IPO registration system reform, provides a new perspective on how such reforms influence corporate financialization, and offers important implications for curbing excessive financialization in real-sector enterprises, deepening IPO registration system reform, and further improving capital markets.