作为一种环境治理的新工具,中央环保约谈制度建立的初衷在于解决属地化环境管理体制下政策执行低效而导致的治理失灵问题,而中央环保约谈的震慑效应及其持续性有待进一步检验。文章基于我国 2005 —2019 年 283 个地级及以上城市的平衡面板数据,利用双重差分法和空间杜宾模型检验了中央环保约谈的震慑效应及其持续性。研究发现：第一,中央环保约谈有效降低了本地工业二氧化硫排放量,具有显著的直接震慑效应；第二,中央环保约谈对空间关联地区的工业二氧化硫排放量产生了负向溢出效应,具有显著的近邻震慑效应；第三,中央环保约谈的直接震慑效应不具有持续性,但近邻震慑效应随时间不断持续和增强；第四,机制分析表明,在风险规避和价值创造的双重作用下,中央环保约谈对空间关联的被约谈城市产生了示范效应和竞争效应。文章聚焦于震慑效应,拓展了环保约谈的研究视角,对环保约谈制度的进一步完善具有实践启示。

劳动力供给的持续下降和传统人口红利的逐渐消失,给基本养老保险带来了更大的运行压力。在中国,基本养老保险和企业年金两种养老制度具有完全不同的给付方式,二者对员工退休意愿的差异化作用及对养老金可持续性的影响将直接关系中国养老保障体系未来的发展方向。文章基于世代交叠模型（OLG）理论框架,分析了在不同的养老金给付方式下员工的退休决策,并利用中国劳动力动态调查数据进行实证检验。结果发现：总体上,参加基本养老保险使员工产生了显著的提前退休意愿,参加企业年金使员工产生了显著的延迟退休意愿,但同时参加两项养老保险的员工退休意愿不显著。受企业年金异质性作用的主导,参加两类养老保险项目对不同特征员工退休意愿的影响存在较大差异,其中对女性、无职称、无资格认证和非高等学历人员,企业年金的延迟退休效应更为明显。机制分析表明,企业员工退休时间越晚,个人基本养老保险财富金额会越少,同时继续工作还会损害健康,耗费更高的医疗成本,致使参加基本养老保险的员工会产生提前退休意愿；企业年金财富随退休时间的延长而逐渐积累,当延迟退休所带来的企业年金财富收益引致养老金总体财富增加时,员工就会产生延迟退休意愿。因此,政府通过优化企业年金减少延迟退休阻力的方案在经济上是可行的。文章的结论为中国通过构建多层次养老保障体系推动延迟退休制度、提升养老金可持续性提供了政策启示。

市场准入负面清单制度的实施有利于营造公平的竞争环境,激发市场竞争活力。作为关键性战略信息,创新信息的披露兼具成本与收益,而在负面清单政策的冲击下,企业究竟会顾及专有成本而抑制创新信息披露,还是出于战略性考虑,增加创新信息披露呢？基于微观企业创新文本信息数据,文章对这一问题进行了考察,研究发现,负面清单制度的实施有利于增加企业创新信息披露以发挥其战略性价值。而横截面检验发现,当创新信息披露成本更低或披露收益更高时,负面清单制度对企业创新信息披露的促进作用更显著。机制分析则表明,管理层竞争感知增强与企业风险承担能力提升是上述影响的关键作用路径。此外,对同行信息外溢效应进行检验发现,同行创新信息披露具有显著的外部性,有利于改善总体的创新信息披露环境,并提升目标企业创新水平。文章从企业创新信息披露环境的视角考察了负面清单政策的微观效应,为我国增强市场主体活力、优化创新信息环境提供了直接的政策建议。

Debt covenants are pervasive in debt contracts. To prevent the dilution of existing debt, most creditors set covenants of a maximum debt-to-earnings ratio for borrowing firms. In this paper, we embed debt covenants into a workhorse real business cycle model with defaultable debt to study its macroeconomic implications. In our model, creditors penalize firms when debt covenants are violated. We show such a mechanism that covenants significantly reduce debt dilution and default over the business cycles. Furthermore, reduced debt dilution due to debt covenants also mitigates the debt overhang problem and thus boosts capital accumulation. Compared to counterfactual economies without covenants, the baseline economy with debt covenants experiences endogenous stabilization of macroeconomic shocks and higher levels of capital, output, and consumption.

While previous research has delved into the relationship between political uncertainty and the aggregate cross-border flows of capital, there remains a notable gap in our understanding of how political uncertainty affects firm ownership structure within foreign direct investment (FDI) projects, specifically concerning the intensive margin. In this study, we commence by introducing a stylized model, wherein a risk-averse foreign investor teaming up with a local producer is concerned about the political risk associated with the provision of public goods by the local government. Our analysis demonstrates that the foreign investor, acting as a residual claimant, allocates a greater proportion of revenues to the local partner when local policy conditions are more uncertain. This strategic decision indirectly locks in local government commitment to the international joint venture, thereby mitigating the negative influence of political uncertainty. Subsequently, we test our theoretical framework by employing a unique dataset that encompasses city-level political turnovers and firm-level incentive structures in the context of China. The results unveil robust evidence substantiating that uncertainty arising from local political turnover significantly affects the revenue-sharing agreements between foreign investors and their local partners within the international joint production.

We build a two-country general equilibrium model to analyze the effects of cross-border data flows and pre-existing development gaps in data economies on each country's production and international trade. Raw data as byproducts of consumption can be transformed into various types of working data (information) to be used by both domestic and foreign producers. Because data constitute a new production factor for intermediate goods, a large extant divide in data utilization can reduce or even freeze trade. Cross-border data flows mitigate the situation and improve welfare when added to international trade. Data-inefficient countries where data are less important in production enjoy a ``latecomer's advantage'' with international trade and data flows, contributing more raw data from which the data-efficient countries generate knowledge for production. Furthermore, cross-border data flows can reverse the cyclicity of working data usage after productivity shocks, whereas shocks to data privacy or import costs have opposite effects on domestic and foreign data sectors. The insights inform future research and policy discussions concerning data divide, data flows, and their implications for trade liberalization, the data labor market, among others.

This paper explores the relationship between longevity risk and health status transition under the framework of life cycle model to explore the optimal insurance allocation including annuity and nursing insurance under different incidence scenarios and the old-age security needs of residents Based on the data from China Health and Pension Tracking Survey (CHARLS), this paper calculates the health state transition probability of residents and calibrates the health state transition probability by using the mortality data of Lee-Carter model, and then solves the optimal insurance decision of residents under different incidence scenarios by multi-period life cycle model The results show that the demand for first annuity and nursing insurance is influenced by initial endowment, health status, minimum living and bequest motivation Residents with lower initial endowments are reluctant to buy annuities and nursing insurance because of precautionary savings motivation Expenditure on care insurance when purchasing both annuities and care insurance may weaken the demand for annuities Secondly, under the interaction of longevity risk and health status transition, residents have higher disability probability and higher demand for annuity and nursing insurance under the scenario of expanding incidence Thirdly, under the optimal wealth decision, the optimal allocation of annuity and nursing insurance makes the wealth level of residents more stable

This chapter introduces alternative financial institutions (AFIs) in China that do not fall within traditional financial institution (FI) models. We describe their business models and development dynamics in the context of economic and financial reforms and technological advancement. We find that various AFIs are formed based on social, business, and virtual networks to overcome capital allocation barriers, reduce costs, or improve efficiency, providing financial services for the underserved. However, without proper regulations, these AFIs could pose alarming levels of risk on financial stability. They repeat a boom-and-bust pattern, in parallel with the government's initial laissez faire approach but later harsh interferences: being taken over by formal FIs or shut down as illegal practices until the exceptional Ant-Financial case. Improving investors' financial knowledge and regulators’ competency is critical for China to advance its financial system and develop mature FIs and AFIs. We recommend key features required in such a regulatory framework.

The aim of the study is to investigate the behaviour of the Chinese government bond yield curve before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its methodology comprises the techniques of time series analysis, correlation analysis and dimensionality reduction. The main empirical results show that in the pandemic period, the behaviour of the Chinese government bond yield curve differs significantly from that before the outbreak of COVID-19. This is evidenced by the weaker correlations among the analysed yields, the presence of anomalies, heterogeneous behaviour and probable arbitrage opportunities at the long-term end of the studied yield curve, as well as the significant changes in the main factors of its dynamics. The research also reveals that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, portfolios composed of Chinese government bonds could be well protected against interest rate risk even by using traditional parallel shift immunization techniques. However, after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic the use of such techniques would be relatively effective for portfolios of Chinese government bonds with maturities between 1 and 5 years, while portfolios that include Chinese government bonds with maturities greater than 7 years should be either hedged against all the three factors of the yield curve dynamics or be used only for arbitrage strategies.

In the era of digital economy, although the production (labor) tools of enterprises are digitalized, intelligent, and networked, and new characteristics and scenarios have emerged in enterprise operation and labor methods, the human capital possessed by workers has become the driving force for the sustainable development of entrepreneurial enterprises. Workers who master digital technology play a decisive role in the sustainable and healthy development of entrepreneurial enterprises. The article points out that in the era of digital economy, human capital is a key factor for economic growth and development. In the fields of mixed ownership and private economy, the employment system will gradually "retire", and modern partnership systems will prevail; The modern partnership system can motivate partners to collaborate and innovate, which is an upgrade of the manager system; The article briefly introduces the advantages and disadvantages of the dual ownership structure and the dynamic equity distribution mechanism of start-up companies; And the achievements made by Xiaomi Group, Huawei Company, and Midea Group in implementing a business partnership system.