Recent studies highlight the resurgence of state capitalism, with the state increasingly acting as equity investors in private firms. Why do state--business equity ties, including partial and indirect state ownership in private firms, proliferate in weakly institutionalized contexts like China? While conventional wisdom emphasizes state-driven explanations based on static evidence, I argue that regulatory risk reshapes business preferences, prompting firms to seek state investors and expanding state--business equity ties. These ties facilitate information exchange and signal political endorsement under regulatory scrutiny. Focusing on China's crackdown on the Internet and IT sectors, difference-in-differences analyses of all investments from 2016 to 2022 reveal a rise in state--business equity ties post-crackdown. In-depth interviews with investors along with quantitative analysis, demonstrate that shifts in business preferences drive this change. This study shows the resurgence of state capitalism is driven not only by the state but also by businesses in response to regulatory risks.

As digital technologies proliferate, firms increasingly leverage digital transformation strategically, necessitating new orientations attuned to digital technological change. This study investigates how digital orientation (DORI)- the philosophy of harnessing digital technology scope, digital capabilities, digital ecosystem coordination, and digital architecture configuration for competitive advantage – influences firms’ environmental, social, and governance performance (ESG_per). Analysis of Chinese A-share firms from 2010-2019 reveals DORI is associated with superior ESG_per, operating through the mediating mechanism of enhanced digital finance (DIFIN) as a fund-providing facilitator for sustainability initiatives. Additional analysis uncovers important heterogeneities – private firms, centrally owned state-owned enterprises, politically connected, and emerging companies exhibit the strongest DORI - ESG_per linkages. Prominently, the study findings are validated through a battery of robustness tests, including instrumental variable methods, and propensity score matching. Overall, the results underscore the need for firms to purposefully develop multifaceted digital orientation and furnishes novel theoretical insights and practical implications regarding DORI’s role in improving ESG_per.

Software and accounting advances have led to a rapid expansion in and proliferation of loyalty tokens, typically bundled as part of product price. Some tokens, such as in the airline industry, already account for tens of billions of dollars and are a major contributor to revenues. An open question is whether, as technology evolves, firms will have a strong incentive to make loyalty tokens tradable, raising regulation issues, including with monetary and banking authorities. This paper argues that for the vast majority of tokens, issuing firms have a strong incentive to make them non-tradable. The core incentive for token issuance here is that an issuer can earn a higher rate of return on the ``float'' (tokens issued but not yet used) than its retail customers can, much like a bank. Our main finding is that an issuer earns higher revenue by making tokens non-tradable even though the consumer would be willing to pay a higher price for tradable tokens. We further show that an issuer with stronger market power tends to allow more frequent token redemption, and its revenue is more token-dependent. We test the model's predictions with data on airline mileage and hotel reward programs and document consistent empirical results that align with our theory.

By using a proprietary real–time daily online sales data collected in China from 10–billion consumer accounts, this paper ffnds that the ffrm–level daily online sales growth (DOSG) can positively predict future one–day to more than three–month cumulative stock returns in the cross section, implying a growth premium in contrast to Lakonishok, Shleifer, and Vishny (1994). A spread portfolio that is long on stocks with high DOSG and short on stocks with low DOSG delivers an abnormal return of around 30 basis points per week. DOSG derives its short–run (e.g., weekly) predictability from investor sentiments, tilting to a behavioral explanation. However, it derives its medium to long–run (e.g., three–month) predictability from fundamentals, voting for a rational explanation. Our further evidence indicates that stocks with high DOSG experience more intensive information acquisition from retail investors and less severe crash risk, implying online sales as a channel for retail investors to get access to daily real–time ffrm fundamentals.

尽管可转换公司债券在改善无效投资方面具有理论上的优良性质，但对其治理功能 的实证考察却十分缺乏。以Shleifer（1989）的分析框架为基础，本文所构建的研究模型着 重于分析可转债对无效投资的治理作用及可转债各具体条款设计与投资效率改善之间的关 系。结果表明，可转债能够实现对公司无效投资的双向治理。以2000至2008年间我国可转债 发行公司为样本所进行的实证检验也部分支持了上述理论分析的结论。具体来说，可转债的 发行能够显著改善公司的投资不足问题，但对于过度投资的制约却表现为短期效应。各具体 条款对投资效率改善的作用并不明显，只有赎回条款能有效缓解公司的投资不足行为，而向 下修正条款的作用则依赖于其表决机制。

We investigate the choice problem in the massive Chinese restructuring campaign that has been described as “grasping the large and letting go of the small,” in which a third of the million or so Chinese state-owned enterprises were either corporatized or privatized. Corporatization differs from privatization in the Chinese context, as in the former case the state remains a large shareholder, whereas in the latter case it has little or no ownership. Using a panel of provincial level statistics, we show that greater local employment pressure, less local fiscal pressure, and a more corrupt local business environment all lead to a lesser likelihood that privatization will be chosen over corporatization. Privatization is found to yield consistent efficiency gains over corporatization in terms of employment and firm profitability. Our evidence is supportive of the theoretical framework of Boycko, Shleifer, and Vishny (1996), who model privatization as an endogenous decision in which politicians trade off employment pressure against public fiscal interest.

本文基于La Porta等(1999)提出的终极控制权理论，从上市公司自由现金流的过度投资视角，研究终极控股股东利用控制权侵占上市公司利益问题。首先基于La Porta等(2002)、Shleifer and Wolfenzon(2002)等工作，通过动态模型方法对这一问题进行理论研究，结果发现自由现金流与过度投资有正向关系，终极控股股东控制权与现金流权分离加剧了过度投资，且当控股股东为私人时，过度投资更严重，而外部治理环境、机构投资者持股及独立董事人数等在一定程度上抑制了过度投资。同时本文基于Richardson(2006)，采用2006-2007年终极控股股东数据进行实证分析，发现控制权与现金流权分离度和过度投资有显著的正向关系，验证了理论发现，并进一步为终极控股股东利用控制权侵占外部投资者利益提供了经验证据。

本文基于La Porta等(1999)提出的终极控制权理论，从上市公司自由现金流的过度投资视角，研究终极控股股东利用控制权侵占上市公司利益问题。首先基于La Porta等(2002)、Shleifer and Wolfenzon(2002)等工作，通过动态模型方法对这一问题进行理论研究，结果发现自由现金流与过度投资有正向关系，终极控股股东控制权与现金流权分离加剧了过度投资，且当控股股东为私人时，过度投资更严重，而外部治理环境、机构投资者持股及独立董事人数等在一定程度上抑制了过度投资。同时本文基于Richardson(2006)，采用2006-2007年终极控股股东数据进行实证分析，发现控制权与现金流权分离度和过度投资有显著的正向关系，验证了理论发现，并进一步为终极控股股东利用控制权侵占外部投资者利益提供了经验证据。

We investigate the endogenous choice problem of Chinese state-owned enterprises in their decision on whether to corporatize or privatize. Corporatization differs from privatization in the Chinese context, as in the former case, the state remains as a large shareholder, and in the latter case, the state has little or no ownership. Using a panel of provincial statistics, we show that the larger the local employment pressure, the less likely we see privatization; the smaller the local fiscal pressure, the less likely we see privatization; the more corrupted the local business environment, the less likely we see privatization. Privatization is found to yield consistent efficiency gains over corporatization measured in terms of both employment and firm profitability. Our evidences are supportive of the theoretical framework of Boycko and Shleifer and Vishny (1996) where they model privatization as politicians’ endogenous decision trading off employment pressure against public fiscal interest.

利用中国市场上剔除资产重组效应后的上市公司民营化样本，本文考察了所有权性质变更对上市公司绩效的影响。本文发现：（1）民营化后上市公司的绩效得到改善；（2）剔除资产重组效应后，与未发生控制权转让的配对国有上市公司样本以及国有企业间控制权转让样本相比，民营化能更有效地改善上市公司绩效；（3）民营化前后上市公司在经理人激励方面没有显著差别，民营化样本与未发生控制权转让的配对国有上市公司样本以及国有企业间控制权转让样本在经理人激励方面也没有显著差别。本文的证据支持了由Shleifer and Vishny（1994）所提出的政治观点。