A central premise of mandatory disclosure regulation is that greater transparency reduces information asymmetry and lowers borrowing costs. We challenge this premise by examining industry-level operational disclosure - a regulatory form that reveals horizontally comparable information across peer firms rather than refining individual firm fundamentals. Exploiting the staggered introduction of mandatory industry-specific disclosure guidelines by Chinese stock exchanges between 2013 and 2019, we find that enhanced industry disclosure significantly widens bond credit spreads by approximately 54 basis points - the opposite of what standard disclosure theory predicts. This counterintuitive effect is more pronounced in non-homogeneous industries, among smaller firms, and for bonds restricted to institutional investors. Mechanism tests confirm two opposing channels: disclosure reduces information asymmetry while simultaneously intensifying product market competition by exposing strategically sensitive operational metrics. Our evidence challenges the one-size-fits-all approach to disclosure regulation and highlights that the competitive implications of disclosed information - not merely its quantity - shape credit risk pricing.

We examine the unintended consequences of bankruptcy court establishment on corporate behavior. Using data on Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2019 and a staggered difference-in-differences model, we find that the establishment of bankruptcy courts increases accrual earnings management by about 17% among high bankruptcy risk firms relative to low-risk firms. While bankruptcy courts improve bankruptcy efficiency and justice, reduce local government intervention, and accelerate the exit of zombie firms, they also induce greater earnings management. This effect is driven mainly by survival pressure and managerial reputation concerns, rather than by efforts to correct external evaluations. Consistent with this interpretation, we do not observe improvements in long-term operations, governance, performance, or real earnings management. Overall, this paper enriches the literature on earnings management from the perspective of judicial governance and on the economic consequences of creditor-friendly bankruptcy institutions.

Hyman Minsky (1919–1996), a prominent post-Keynesian economist, argued that capitalist financial systems are inherently unstable. During prolonged prosperity, firms and financial institutions increase leverage and adopt more fragile forms of financing, shifting from hedge to speculative and Ponzi finance. This gradual buildup of financial fragility can eventually trigger a sudden collapse of asset values—later termed a “Minsky moment.” After the 2007–2009 global financial crisis, Minsky’s ideas gained renewed attention, and current financial developments once again bring his insights to the forefront.

How do market-design reforms affect secondary-market liquidity in an emerging equity market? We examine China’s ChiNext reform, which combined registration-based IPO issuance with changes in secondary-market trading rules. Using firm-month observations and high-frequency order-book data, we compare incumbent ChiNext firms with Main Board firms in a difference-in-differences framework. The results show that the reform significantly improves secondary-market liquidity, with consistent evidence across alternative DID estimators and liquidity measures. Dynamic estimates show comparable pre-reform movements and increasingly favorable liquidity outcomes after implementation. Cross-sectional analysis indicates stronger liquidity improvements among larger and more profitable firms. Microstructure results show narrower quoted spreads, broadly stable displayed depth, and a shift in order flow toward buyer-initiated trading. Overall, the findings demonstrate that the integrated ChiNext reform package improved secondary-market liquidity and reshaped the cross-sectional distribution of liquidity gains, highlighting the market-quality consequences of institutional reform in emerging equity markets.

Digitalization is widely promoted as a means to enhance faculty development, yet in resource-constrained regions like Northwest China, structural inequalities persist. This qualitative case study examines how national policy, institutional capacity, and faculty agency interact to shape digital support in higher education. Drawing on institutional records and interviews with faculty from two universities, the study reveals stark disparities in funding, infrastructure, and training strategies. Research-intensive institutions benefit from policy-backed resources and expert-led programs, while regional universities rely on low-cost lectures and collaborations. Faculty report limited autonomy, disciplinary biases, and insufficient support for emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. In this regional context, these findings challenge assumptions of resource neutrality and technological determinism in digital education policy. The study proposes a governance-oriented framework that emphasizes institutional responsibility, faculty empowerment, and context-sensitive digital strategies. It offers insights for policymakers and institutions seeking to advance equitable and sustainable faculty development in digitally transforming higher education systems.

This paper studies how dividing candidates in a tournament into separate tracks with differentiated performance criteria affects incentives and aggregate outcomes. We exploit China’s Major Function Oriented Zoning plan, which assigns counties to devel-opment or conservation tracks, with the latter de-emphasizing growth indicators. Using a staggered Difference-in-Differences design, we find that prefectures introducing a con-servation track achieved higher aggregate economic performance despite relaxing growth-based evaluation for part of their subordinate counties. To explain this counterintuitive ef-fect, we develop a stylized Tullock contest model that highlights two institutional features: promotion opportunities remain open to officials in both tracks, and counties within the same prefecture continue to interact across tracks. The model further predicts an inverted U-shaped relationship between the size of the conservation track and overall performance, which is supported by empirical evidence.

This paper quantifies the impact of rural–urban migration on agricultural fires, a major source of air pollution in China. Using satellite records and census data, we exploit an exogenous trade shock that raised manufacturing labor demand in destination prefec-tures, drawing workers from origin counties through established migration networks. A one-percentage-point increase in rural labor emigration in 2010 led to a 5% rise in agricultural fires from 2011 to 2017. The effect stems from reduced agricultural labor, which incentivizes fire use as a labor-saving clearing method. Consistent with this mech-anism, we find no effect from non-agricultural emigration or from migration to nearby areas where return farming remains feasible, with the strongest impact during harvest seasons. Institutional reforms, particularly land titling programs, significantly mitigate the problem by enhancing tenure security, enabling farmland reallocation, and reducing reliance on fire—proving more effective than nationwide administrative bans.

Community-based natural resource governance is often promoted in the name of sustainability, yet long-term outcomes remain elusive. This study examines the impact of various types of trust as the underpinning factor for the long-term resilience of collaborative resource governance. Using a four-type trust framework, dispositional, affinitive, rational, and procedural, the study compares trust trajectories across the prior to-, during-, and post-project phases of matsutake mushroom management in two communities within the S National Protected Area, Yunnan Province, China. Drawing on qualitative interviews and comparative case analysis, the study finds that while neither community sustained co-management mechanisms in full, X Village retained partial continuity through embedded procedural and rational trust. In contrast, Y village experienced accelerated institutional decline after project withdrawal, as market changes and weak enforcement undermined collective norms and trust in formal structures. These findings underscore that institutional resilience is shaped not only by institutional design but also by the evolution and interaction of trust types over time. By tracing trust trajectories across project stages, this study contributes a micro-level explanation of how trust mediates post-project governance outcomes. It emphasizes the importance of layering trust and embedding it within local social and institutional practices. The findings highlight the need to consider how co-management strategies can support trust continuity after project withdrawal, particularly by acknowledging the underlying structural conditions that shape trust resilience.

High-quality development of water conservancy (HDWC) is of critical value for safeguarding the stability of production systems, livelihoods, and ecosystems. As the digital revolution intersects with China’s “dual carbon” targets, development of water conservancy must transition from traditional engineering approaches to data-driven ecological models. Drawing on institutional logic theory and employing dynamic qualitative comparative analysis across 30 Chinese provinces, this study examines how digital ecology facilitates the HDWC. The findings reveal that none of digital government, digital infrastructure, digital economy, digital capability, or digital society constitutes a necessary condition for the HDWC. Instead, it is the result of the combined effects of multiple institutional logics. Five configurations leading to HDWC are identified and categorized into four types: government-market-driven model, government-market-society-driven model, market-society-driven model, and government-society-driven model. The consistency of the configurations significantly increased during the study period. Furthermore, their distribution showed substantial regional differences. There are two configurations that inhibit the HDWC, namely the government-market-absence type and the market-society-absence type. Digital society emerges as a critical factor. This research uncovers multiple pathways through which digital ecology can empower HDWC, providing valuable insights for optimizing regional digital environments.

Firm survival, as a key indicator of regional economic resilience, has gained increasing attention in the context of global economic uncertainty and the deep adjustments in industrial structures. In the Pearl River Delta (PRD), a core region of China’s Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, the characteristics of firm life cycles are crucial for understanding spatial development inequalities and institutional effects in emerging economies. This study focuses on firms in the PRD, using full life-cycle data from registration, operation, to deregistration. An XGBoost regression model is employed, incorporating the SHAP explanation algorithm, to systematically analyze the main factors influencing firm survival. The results show that: (1) Firm establishment time is the primary factor influencing survival, with significant “survival threshold” and “growth leap” effects—mature firms exhibit a distinct survival advantage; (2) Among spatial structure variables, moderate industry specialization and diversity enhance firm survival rates, while excessive concentration and diversification show diminishing or negative returns, reflecting an “ecological threshold” effect; (3) External shocks have a significant suppressive impact on startups, while policy support and capital size show limited explanatory power; (4) The ownership structure, especially state-holding, has a positive moderating effect on firm survival in specific contexts, indicating that private enterprises’ flexibility and adaptability can compensate for institutional gaps. This study offers insights into the spatial heterogeneity of firm survival mechanisms, providing quantitative evidence for regional economic policy adjustments and firm resilience-building. Recommendations include promoting differentiated policies, optimizing industrial ecological spatial layouts, and piloting systems to enhance survival resilience, especially for mixed-ownership firms.