理论上是否需要由政府来制定产业政策仍存在极大争议。本文基于 2008 年 开始实施的《高新技术企业认定管理办法》这一具体的产业政策，研究产业政策实施中的激励效应与迎合效应。研究发现，公司获得高新技术企业认定后，其专利申请数量会显著增加，专利申请质量也会显著提升，但通过虚增研发投入而获得高新技术企业认定的公司，其专利申请数量和专利申请质量却提升较少。这表明产业政策既可能会激励公司创新，也可能导致公司仅仅为表面迎合政策要求，而无意于真正从事创新。机制分析结果还发现，产业政策的减税优惠和政府补助会促进真正的高新技术企业增加创新，但对于伪高新技术企业，税收减免和政府补助的创新激励作用却显著减弱。最后，本文还利用事件研究法发现，真正的高新技术企业在宣告获得高新技术企业认定时公司价值会显著提升，但通过虚增研发投入而获得高新技术企业认定的公司其价值却并未增加。本文研究结论不仅协调了“产业政策之争”交战双方所持的不同理论观点，也为政府如何实施产业政策提供了理论参考。

This paper examines the impact and mechanism of digital finance on financial fraud by constructing a theoretical framework of digital finance affecting corporate financial fraud. We use panel data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2018. The results that digital finance can significantly inhibit corporate financial fraud and improve the ability of financial institutions to identify financial statements. Thus, the incentive and opportunity for corporations to engage in financial fraud is directly reduced. The internal mechanism shows that digital finance can restrain corporate financial fraud by alleviating the financing constraints faced by enterprises, as well as reducing corporate financial fraud by reducing corporate leverage. These effects will reduce debt pressure, thus easing the motivation of corporate financial fraud. The results of heterogeneity analysis that digital finance has a significant inhibitory effect on financial fraud of enterprises with different scales and different property rights.

This paper examines return spillovers within and between different DeFi, cryptocurrency, stock and safe-haven assets. The results show that DeFi and cryptocurrency asset markets exhibit strong within-market and between-market return spillovers, that stock and safe-haven markets show weak connectedness, and that safe-haven assets are minor receivers and transmitters of between-market spillover effects. The connectedness between markets is time varying and reveals structural changes in early 2020. Furthermore, we document that financial conditions shape the dynamics of return spillover effects between markets.

We explore whether Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) can provide incremental information to peers. Using Chinese stock market data, we find that positive peers' MD&A tone encourages firms to hold more cash, particularly for industries with fewer institutional investors' site visits. Moreover, this association is moderated by predation risk and decision-making environment. Specifically, this effect is more pronounced for firms which are market followers or financial constrained, and it is also stronger for firms operating under higher economic policy uncertainty or solely in domestic market. Overall, our findings enrich the information channels of peer effects in cash policy.

Regional carbon emission efficiency has differentiated characteristics under different economic development stages and patterns, and it is significant to identify such characteristics and formulate corresponding policies for high-quality regional development. Based on input-output data related to economic development and energy consumption, a comprehensive evaluation model of Super-SBM and Malmquist-Luenberger (ML) index was constructed to evaluate the spatial and temporal changes and driving forces of CEE, on the basis of which a proposal for collaborative carbon emission reduction zoning is proposed. The results indicated that the carbon emission efficiency (CEE) of the YRD shows a fluctuating upward trend with obvious spatial agglomeration characteristics, and the changes in CEE were closely related to the stage of economic development. The annual average CEE value during each period exhibited positive changes, indicating that economic development gradually shifted toward low carbonization. Moreover, the improvement of CEE gradually shifted from being driven by efficiency change to being driven by technological change. Finally, based on the carbon emissions and CEE characteristics of different cities, a carbon-neutral synergistic path is proposed in terms of industrial transformation, green development and technological support.

We explore the relationship between fintech, macroprudential policies, and commercial bank risk-taking. Based on system generalized method of moment modeling on a panel data of 114 commercial banks in China from 2013 to 2020, results show that there are functional differences in the impact of fintech on bank risk-taking. Payment and settlement technology (PST), capital raising technology (CRT) and investment management technology (IMT) are positively correlated with bank risk-taking. In contrast, market facility technology (MFT) negatively correlates with bank risk-taking. We also find that macroprudential policies weaken the promotion effect of CRT on bank risk-taking and strengthen the inhibition effect of MFT on bank risk-taking while having no significant moderating effect on PST and bank risk, IMT and bank risk. Further, the micro characteristics of banks (capital adequacy ratio, asset scale, liquidity level) affects the moderating strength of macroprudential policies. Various robustness tests confirm our conclusions.

Referring to the newspaper textual analysis method by Baker et al. (2016), this study constructs a monthly Chinese Real Estate Policy Uncertainty (REPU) index from 2001 to 2018. The index increases significantly near the promulgation of major policies. We also conduct evaluation of the index with the vector autoregression (VAR) model, which reveals that the rise of REPU indicates the decline in the growth rate of commodity housing development investment, sales area, and real estate industry added value. The REPU index is helpful to expand the understanding of policy uncertainty, and the accurate measurement of REPU is the basis for further research of its impact on China's real estate market.

This paper examines the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the future stock price crash risk using a sample of Chinese listed firms. We employ the divergence of CSR ratings for measuring the unmeasurable outcome uncertainty, and find that conditional on firms’ CSR performance, future stock price crash risk will arise with the CSR divergence. Further results show that the moderating effect is more pronounced for firms with weaker investor protection or higher agency costs. We conclude that firms with higher CSR divergence have more severe agency problem which is complementary to the literature where stakeholders’ theory dominates.

This paper uses a loan transactions dataset from China to identify whether shadow loans cost more than formal bank loans even with collateral. This motivates us to explore the reasons as to why a listed firm would opt for such loans. Using propensity-score matched data, we find that privately-owned firms with shadow loans are forced to obtain these loans since they are politically discriminated following a regulation change in 2009 that favoured state-owned firms. However, state-owned firms obtain shadow loans due to their inferior firm characteristics. Further, we employ a Difference-in-Differences methodology to uncover that privately-owned firms experience a decline in their performance, investment growth and an increase in default probability following their high dependence on shadow loans when they are excluded from the formal loan market. The above results survive various robustness checks, including doubly-robust inverse-probability weighted Difference-in-Differences regressions.

Distinct from existing studies on general institutional investors and institutional investor cliques, this study examines how common institutional owners, who simultaneously hold more than 5% equity blocks in at least two publicly traded firms within the same industry, influence firms’ bad mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in China. Contrary to the “conspiracy tort” view, according to which common institutional owners are more likely to vote for bad M&A deals to pursue internalized gains from industry portfolios (Antón et al., 2022b), our results strongly support the “synergy governance” view, according to which common institutional owners perform more actively and effectively in monitoring against bad M&As and improving M&A quality. There is further evidence that common institutional owners with greater peer linkages and industry power and longer-term holdings are more likely to oppose deals with negative acquirer returns. Finally, we find that the effect of common institutional ownership on M&As is more pronounced among firms with stronger earnings management, moderate stock return synchronicity, less management shareholding and higher management expenses. The results are consistent with the “synergy governance” hypothesis whereby common institutional owners are able to leverage their advantages of industry information and supervisory experience to improve the information environment and corporate governance of the firms they hold. Overall, in China’s market, common institutional owners play an active external governance role and effectively improve M&A quality.