Farmland transfer in developing countries is characterized by informal contracts. Rich research typically attributes this phenomenon to the lack of property rights and rarely emphasizes the influence of land characteristics themselves. Utilizing plot-level data from 2017-2019 collected in Yangshan County, China, we evaluate the impact of land consolidation on the farmland transfer market transformation. We find that land consolidation has a positive impact on the transformation of farmland transfer markets, instead of its scale expansion. After land consolidation, the scope of transaction partners extends from relationship-based households to anonymous new agricultural operating entities; the transfer rent shifts from being free of charge to being paid; and the transfer duration shifts from short-term to long-term. Mechanism analysis reveals that land consolidation increases land value and reduces transaction costs by improving the endowment of farmland resources, thus driving the farmland transfer market transformation. Further exploration warns that market transformation caused by land consolidation may trigger non-grain farming, leading to a 15.2% reduction in the rice planting area and posing potential risks to food security. These findings enrich the existing studies that only focus on the impact of land rights reform, both theoretically and empirically. In practice, it has important policy implications for countries facing similar difficulties in the farmland transfer market as China.

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.

The relationship between economic decentralization and regional economic growth has attracted wide academic attention. However, existing literature rarely explores the validity and applicability of decentralization theory from the perspective of location endowments. This study takes China’s county-to-city reform - a decentralization policy - as a point of entry to construct a decentralization model incorporating location endowments. Using county-level panel data from 1992 to 2009 and employing a difference-in-differences (DID) approach, the study evaluates the impact of county-to-city reform under the constraint of location endowments on county-level economic development. The findings reveal that the policy effects of local decentralization are constrained by location endowments. Specifically, in regions with poorer location endowments, county-to-city reform significantly inhibits local economic development. Indeed, mechanism analysis further indicates that in such disadvantaged regions, local decentralization under the county-to-city reform generates a “political resource curse” effect, which hinders economic growth through three channels such as distorted fiscal expenditure structures, corruption, and misallocation of land resources. The conclusions of this study provide a valuable perspective for understanding the conditions under which decentralization theory holds, while also offering rigorous empirical evidence for government agencies to design more targeted decentralization policies.

Capital market internationalization is widely regarded as an important pathway to improving resource allocation efficiency and enhancing governance quality, while simultaneously imposing higher requirements on corporate sustainability and social responsibility. However, its impact on firms’ internal income distribution remains subject to academic debate. This study treats the inclusion of China’s A-shares in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index as a landmark exogenous shock of capital market internationalization. Based on a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2014 to 2022, we manually compile firm-level MSCI inclusion data and construct a multi-period difference-in-differences model for empirical testing. The results indicate that firms’ inclusion in the MSCI Index significantly increases their labor income share. The mechanism analysis reveals that this promoting effect operates mainly through three channels: alleviating financing constraints, fostering innovative development, and strengthening investor governance. Further heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect is more pronounced among technology-intensive firms, firms under greater competitive pressure, and firms with higher degrees of internationalization. By incorporating income distribution outcomes into the framework of capital market internationalization, this paper enriches the evidence on the economic and social effects of internationalization and provides policy implications for emerging economies to advance high-level capital market opening and optimize income distribution.

Cultural tightness measures the extent to which individuals behave according to the broader values shared by other members in society. While cultural tightness has been studied extensively in the context of individuals’ behavior and (cross) country-level outcomes, much less is known about the explanatory power it holds in the setting of organizational structures. Motivated by the ambiguous relationship between cultural tightness and population-level gender equality documented by prior literature, we investigate whether cultural tightness helps explain board gender diversity levels in China. Rooting our hypotheses in institutional theory and the contextual governmental reforms of China, we leverage a large sample of Chinese A-share listed firms and document that firms located in culturally tight provinces have higher levels of board gender diversity. Further analyses reveal that cultural tightness in China partially offsets the impact of more traditional Confucian values, and the relationship becomes more pronounced in settings where firms can realize higher legitimacy gains from adopting women on their boards. Finally, we counter potential critiques of window dressing, by demonstrating that in culturally tighter areas women are more likely to be higher educated, have more experience abroad, hold more board positions, and are less likely to be independent directors.

This study investigates the impact of employee ownership on firms’ investment responsiveness to stock market feedback. Using data from Chinese listed firms, we find that employee ownership significantly enhances the sensitivity of corporate investment to Tobin’s q. This effect is more pronounced in firms with higher information asymmetry, greater labor intensity, weaker corporate governance, and higher financial distress risk. While employee ownership is linked to increased subsequent profitability volatility, it also mitigates financial mismatch and downside operating risk. Our findings also suggest that employee ownership drives a shift in corporate strategy, leading to more aggressive approaches and improved risk preferences. These results highlight the role of employee ownership in mitigating agency problems and enhancing firms’ ability to incorporate market information into investment decisions.

Research Question/Issue: This study investigates whether and how political connections affect customer complaints in the Chinese market, using a comprehensive dataset from the country’s largest online complaint platform. Research Findings/Insights: Analyzing 22,644 firm-year observations from 2018 to 2023, we find that politically connected firms experience significantly fewer customer complaints. A one-unit increase in political connection strength is associated with a 9% reduction in complaints relative to the sample mean. This effect operates through two primary mechanisms: a reputation-motivation channel and a financial resource channel. The mitigating effect is more pronounced for firms in highly marketized regions, those with higher advertising expenditures, companies facing greater earnings pressure, and those with lower tangible asset ratios. Theoretical/Academic Implications: Our study contributes to the literature on political connections and corporate governance by demonstrating how political capital translates into tangible consumer experience advantages. It also advances research on the determinants of customer complaints by highlighting the role of internal governance mechanisms, particularly managerial political ties. Our findings support the Corporate Reputation and Financial Resource Hypotheses while challenging alternative explanations based on regulatory shielding or managerial complacency. Practitioner/Policy Implications: For corporate leaders, our results underscore the importance of reputation management and quality investment, particularly when political connections are absent. Policymakers should consider strengthening public monitoring institutions to reinforce reputational incentives across markets. Investors may use customer complaints as an indicator of product quality and operational stability in their investment decisions.

Purpose – Estimates disclosure of human capital management for Chinese listed companies. Investigate the patterns ofthe disclosure of human capital management acrossindustries and regions. Examine the determinants of human capital management disclosure in China. Examine the association between human capital management disclosure and firm performance. Design/methodology/approach – We employ natural language processing techniques on annual reports’ management discussion and analysissections.We construct exposuremeasuresforten human capitalmanagement dimensions and synthesize them into one comprehensive measure of human capital management disclosure. We conduct empirical analysis on the measure using a sample of Chinese listed companies during 2009–2022. Findings – We construct a measure of human capital management disclosure for 5,153 Chinese companies during 2009–2022. We find that firms with high HCM disclosure are more labor intensive and have more cash holdings and R&D expenditure but have lower sales growth, market-to-book ratio and leverage. HCM disclosure is associated with better future accounting performance but poor future market valuation. There are substantial variations in HCM disclosure across industries, geographic regions and ownership types. HCM disclosure has increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social implications – The increased HCM disclosure and its association with firm operating performance and market valuation indicate the relevance of HCM in corporate management and underscore the need for more robust and standardized disclosure of HCM in China. Our findingssupport recent regulatory efforts by CSRC to enhance the transparency and accountability in HCM disclosures and advocate for more explicit and specific HCM disclosure requirements in the future. Originality/value – We propose a quantitative measure of human capital management disclosure, which can be modified to apply to other markets. We construct a comprehensive, ready-to-use dataset for HCM disclosure for Chinese listed companies and conduct descriptive analysis on the dataset. We identify the patterns of human capital management disclosure and its determinants in China.

This paper examines the relationship between award-winning CEOs and the levels of innovation investment in Chinese-listed companies. The findings indicate that CEOs who have received awards are more likely to foster increased corporate innovation. Additionally, these award-winning CEOs are associated with enhanced long-term operating performance for their firms and reinforce the link between current R&D investments and future operational success. Ultimately, our results suggest that CEO awards can enhance corporate innovation through two primary channels: first, by attracting investors, thereby alleviating financing constraints, and second, by promoting greater engagement from academics and overseas talent in innovation initiatives.

This paper investigates whether firm-level freight activity captures corporate fundamentals and predicts stock returns. Using smartphone geolocation data of truck drivers from 2019 to 2024, we construct a novel freight growth index (FGI) to quantify firms’ freight activity in the Chinese stock market. We find that firms’ freight growth is strongly associated with current operating performance and predicts future stock returns. A long-short portfolio sorted on FGI generates significant risk-adjusted monthly returns ranging from 57 to 72 basis points. Further evidence suggests that freight growth forecasts earnings announcement returns and is more predictive for firms with low information transparency. Moreover, freight growth provides incremental information in predicting stock returns beyond analyst forecasts. Our findings highlight that firm-level freight activity contains novel insights into firm fundamentals and stock pricing.