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.

Informal institutions can play a crucial role in fostering corporate and policy innovation, especially when formal institutions are weak. However, their intangible nature makes them difficult to quantify. In this paper, we proxy the strength of kinship-based informal institutions using surname homogeneity among business owners, specifically, the extent to which they share a limited number of surnames within the same county. Our analysis reveals that a one-standard-deviation increase in the strength of informal institutions leads to a 21.1% increase in patent filings and an 18.9% increase in policy innovation. We find that kinship-related informal institutions foster corporate innovation by compensating for weak formal institutions, enhancing protection for intellectual property rights, facilitating access to finance, improving public service delivery, and promoting supply chain cooperation. We also suggest that kinship-related informal institutions encourage local governments to engage in policy experimentation, which relies on the collaboration of business owners. This experimentation process is easier to coordinate and monitor in counties dominated by a few kinship networks. Both informal institutions and policy innovation contribute to economic development and foster entrepreneurial market entries. However, the positive impact of informal institutions declines over time as formal institutions strengthen in China.

Using one of the largest samples of litigation data available to date, we examine whether the political culture of a firm determines its propensity for corporate misconduct. We measure political culture using the politi- cal contributions of top managers, firm political action committees, and local residents. We show that firms with a Republican culture are more likely to be the subject of civil rights, labor, and environmental litigation than are Democratic firms, consistent with the Democratic ideology that emphasizes equal rights, labor rights, and envi- ronmental protection. However, firms with a Democratic culture are more likely to be the subject of litigation related to securities fraud and intellectual property rights violations than are Republican firms, whose party ideology stresses self-reliance, property rights, market discipline, and limited government regulation. Upon lit- igation filing, both types of firms experience similar announcement reaction, which suggests that the observed relationship between political culture and corporate misconduct is unlikely to reflect differences in expected litigation costs.

This paper examines the relationship between population aging and corporate digital transformation from the perspective of demographic changes. Generally, the findings indicate that population aging notably contributes to corporate digital transformation, mainly through increasing labor costs, including expected and actual labor costs. Further analysis suggests that the above effects are significantly weakened in samples of firms with lower levels of regional intellectual property protection, higher corporate financial constraints, and shorter-sighted managerial decision-making. Moreover, the economic consequences test implies aforementioned favorable effects can enhance corporate total factor productivity.

Chinese enterprises are currently facing unprecedented economic transformations accompanied by a diverse array of challenges. This article delves into these challenges and provides management recommendations to assist companies in addressing these pressing issues. First, China's economic growth is gradually slowing, prompting companies to explore new avenues for growth, such as diversifying their products and markets, enhancing research and development, and expanding into emerging markets. Second, the uncertain global trade landscape has impacted exports and supply chains, necessitating diversified supply chains, new trade partnerships, and proactive strategies to navigate potential trade policy changes. Additionally, the pressure of technological innovation cannot be underestimated, urging companies to increase R&D investment, collaborate with other enterprises on research, and recruit and nurture high-quality tech talent. Furthermore, with the Chinese government's growing focus on environmental concerns, companies need to invest in clean production technologies, build sustainable supply chains, and actively fulfill their social responsibilities. Other challenges including rising labor costs, intellectual property protection, financial risks, regulatory compliance, talent recruitment and retention, and digital transformation all require proactive responses. By adopting proactive management strategies, Chinese enterprises can thrive in this era filled with both opportunities and risks, achieving sustainable growth and enhanced competitiveness.

As a vital documentation for assessments, rewards and punishments in terms of political promotions, the intellectual property pilot city policy (IPPC), an strategic incentive measure to enhance innovation capacities at the city and firm level, may play a prominent role in innovation fostering in China. Yet patent bubbles that focus more on quantity over quality have been thrown into doubt, as local cadres and firms shall pay more attention to the easier observable low-quality innovation performance amid the pressure of political task. this paper conducts an investigation that drew upon listed firm data from 270 prefecture-level cities and employs a PSM-DID design to evaluate the IPPC policy effectiveness on innovation quality and innovation quantity. The results are obvious: The policy have boosted the number of innovations, but has a limited effect on improving the quality of innovation. We further apply a hierarchical liner modeling approach to deal with the stratified cityand firm-level data and to verify the mechanism through which policy distortions may affect corporate innovation. There also gives evidence that the IPPC policy comes into effect mainly through financial subsidies, institutional supply and the intensity of IPR protection at the local scale. This report concludes by proposing further policy implementations for the future optimization of China’s innovation strategies.

Financing of and investing in R&D are prone to risks of appropriation by competitors, information asymmetry, and agency problems. Although legal protection of intellectual property (IP) rights at the national level is necessary to encourage investing in R&D, we show that the effective enforcement at the local level is critical. We focus on the impact of provincial level IP rights enforcement on the financing of and investing in R&D, using a unique and rich database of high technology firms. These firms are located in twenty-eight provinces/districts throughout China. The enforcement of IP rights differs at the provincial level, although the firms are under the same set of national and international laws. To identify the causal effect of provincial level IP rights enforcement on firm behavior, we use several approaches to deal with the issues of endogeneity, reverse causality, and simultaneity. Controlling for provincial institutional factors such as economic development, banking system development, legal system performance, and local government corruption, we find that the enforcement of IP rights positively affects firms’ ability to acquire new external debt (including formal and informal financing) and external equity. Firms in provinces with better enforcement of IP rights invest more funding in R&D, generate more innovation patents, and produce more sales from new products. We also find better enforcement of IP rights encourages financing of and investment in R&D in foreign and ethnic joint ventures. The results confirm that enforcement of IP rights matters even in China. Our paper provides firm level evidence that financing of and investing in R&D are the channels that link enforcement of IP rights and economic growth.

Financing of and investing in R&D are prone to risks of appropriation by competitors, information asymmetry, and agency problems. Although legal protection of intellectual property (IP) rights at the national level is necessary to encourage investing in R&D, we show that the effective enforcement at the local level is also critical. We concentrate on the impact of IP rights enforcement at the provincial level on the financing of and investing in R&D, using a unique and rich sample of high technology firms. These firms are located in twenty-eight provinces/districts throughout China. The enforcement of IP rights differs at the provincial level, although the firms are under the same set of national and international laws. Controlling for provincial institutional factors such as economic development, banking system development, legal system performance, and local government corruption, we find that the enforcement of IP rights positively affects firms’ ability to acquire new external debt (including formal and informal financing) and external equity. The firms in provinces with better enforcement of IP rights invest more in R&D, generate more patents, and produce more sales from new products. We also find better enforcement of IP rights helps mitigate the problem of appropriation by local partners in foreign and ethnic joint ventures. Our evidence confirms that enforcement of IP rights matters even in China. Furthermore, our results support that the enforcement of IP rights affects the growth in the economy via the channels of financing of and investing in R&D.

Financing of and investing in R&D are prone to risks of appropriation by competitors, information asymmetry, and agency problems. Although legal protection of intellectual property (IP) rights at the national level is necessary to encourage investing in R&D, we show that the effective enforcement at the local level is also critical. We concentrate on the impact of provincial level IP rights enforcement on the financing of and investing in R&D, using a unique and rich sample of high technology firms. These firms are located in twenty-eight provinces/districts throughout China. The enforcement of IP rights differs at the provincial level, although the firms are under the same set of national and international laws. Controlling for provincial institutional factors such as economic development, banking system development, legal system performance, and local government corruption, we find that the enforcement of IP rights positively affects firms' ability to acquire new external debt (including formal and informal financing) and external equity. The firms in provinces with better enforcement of IP rights invest more funding in R&D, generate more patents, and produce more sales from new products. We also find better enforcement of IP rights helps mitigate the problem of appropriation by local partners in foreign and ethnic joint ventures. To deal with the problems of reverse causality and omitted common variables, we adopt the instrumental variable method and the approach used by Rajan and Zingales (1998), and the impact of IP rights enforcement is robust to different specifications. Our evidence confirms that enforcement of IP rights matters even in China. Furthermore, our results support that the enforcement of IP rights affects the growth in the economy via the channels of financing of and investing in R&D.