Convertible bonds were first introduced in China in 1998. Their popularity has risen in the past decades through various domestic regulatory reforms, as more and more companies came to recognize their advantages over conventional bond or equity issuances as ways to raise capital. In this paper, we study the role of convertible bonds in Chinese A-share listed companies’ decision to refinance, using data from 1999 to 2018. First, we find that firms with high information asymmetry tend to issue more convertible bonds than equities to mitigate financing cost, especially under the “Regulation of Restraining Non-public Issuance of Shares (NPIS)” launched in 2017, a regulation that retrains listed companies to issue shares non-publicly. Second, the introduction of “Breaking Rigid Redemption” policy, which breaks the custom of using rigid redemption clauses when financial institutes issue corporate bonds and asset management products, effectively promoted interest rate marketization in China and as a result, companies with a strong tendency to shift risks began to issue convertible bonds to reduce issuing cost after 2017. Third, regulatory requirements on the qualifications for companies played important roles in their refinancing choices. Lastly, we also find that SOEs in China are overall less sensitive to risk-shifting and information asymmetry, given their ample loan resources compared with non-SOEs. Our findings delineate the behaviors of Chinese A-share listed companies in their refinancing and explain the sudden surge in convertible bonds issuance since 2017.

本文梳理了我国股指期货市场交易机制的演进过程，分析了交易机制演进的路径，并参考国际经验，基于期货交易机制的现有研究，提出了调整交易机制的政策建议。研究表明，交易规则及实施细则的修订优化了业务规则体系，满足了产品创新需求，体现出专业化和综合化的特点。同时，建议中金所参考国际经验，充分征求多方意见，制定合理的、有预见性的修订方案。建议股指期货合约及其交易细则参考国际经验，调整现行的交易时间并修订熔断机制条款。为促进期货市场发展、提高市场流动性，保证金、手续费应进一步降低，而持仓限额应进一步增加。交易所在股市暴跌期间的应急措施应及时调整。

China's local government debt financing grows rapidly featuring surging chengtou bond issuance and risk exposure since the global financial crisis in 2008. The accumulation of local government debt poses systemic risks to China's fiscal and financial systems. Using weekly data from 2009 to 2014, this paper studies the joint dynamics and risk transmission mechanism between chengtou bond spreads and treasury yields under the framework of the extended no-arbitrage Nelson-Seigel term structure model, which guarantees the no-arbitrage relationship between treasury yields of different maturities. The results show that the chengtou bonds indeed exhibit considerable local risks and can lead to systemic risk of the treasury bonds, such that the treasury yields have significant component of risk premium due to chengtou risk. On the other hand, as the safest asset in China at present, the treasury yields with short-to-medium maturities decrease as a result of the “fly-to-safety" effect when the chengtou risk increases. Meanwhile, the dynamics of chengtou bond spreads reflect the market-oriented risk pricing by investors on credit and liquidity risks under limitations of the government implicit guarantee. Under this condition, it is the right timing to reasonably standardize and institutionalize the local government bond market with transparent market mechanism.

本文探讨了2015年下半年股市异常波动以来至今持续存在股指期货巨幅贴水现象及其原因。我们首先检验了非频繁交易以及股市波动的两种解释，发现均不能很好地解释该现象。接着，我们计算了期权市场隐含的偏度风险溢价；其代表了投资者的恐慌程度和坏的尾部事件的不确定性溢价。偏度风险溢价与股指期货的VAR分析表明，股指期货价格的深度贴水可以由偏度风险溢价解释，说明投资者对崩溃风险的担心导致了投机者向套期保值者索取高额的“保险费”。股指期货的贴水幅度加深也增加了市场的偏度风险溢价，导致投资者对稀有事件不确定性索取更高的溢价。因此，完善现货市场做空机制，使得期现套利交易可行同时恢复股指期货交易，可以消除股指期货价格的深度贴水，降低投资者的对冲成本，使股指期货发挥正常的风险管理功能

This paper studies the presence of informed trading in Taiwan stock index options (TXO) and analyzes the informational role of foreign institutions in incorporating information into Taiwan stock index futures (TX). We have found that only the option-induced part (OOI) of the total TX order imbalance can predict future TX prices, and the OOI calculated from open-buy TXO, defined by Ni et al. (2008), provides incremental predictability. This finding shows that the price predictability stems from the information flow resulting from option transactions rather than from liquidity pressure. We conclude further that option transactions from foreign institutions provide the most significant predictability, out-of-the-money option transactions in particular. These empirical results show that option transactions conducted by foreign institutions have played the primary role in conveying the information inherent in the TXO market to the TX market, foreign institutions being delta-informed traders. Retail investors, the major players in both the TXO and TX markets, have done almost nothing of significance with regard to TXO information transmission into the TX market, with the exception of some near-the-money and out-of-the-money options.

股价的崩盘风险具有重要的研究价值与意义。着眼于由错误定价引发的崩盘风险，本文通过机器学习模型为每个股票-月份样本计算得到样本外崩盘风险信息，逐年样本外预测精确性的均值为89.06%，在一定程度上保证了崩盘风险信息的有效性。本文对崩盘风险信息的进一步研究发现：（1）崩盘风险的截面收益具有较高的统计与经济显著性，且具有边际的定价能力；（2）当在投资策略中加入崩盘风险的截面信息执行因子择时策略时，样本外夏普比率约为未加入的2.05倍，显示出崩盘风险的截面信息对于因子择时的突出贡献。本文的研究结果具有较强的现实意义，表现为基于崩盘风险信息，能够充分发挥资本市场中市场与非市场的力量，从而有效地降低系统性风险发生的可能性，为金融体系的健康发展保驾护航。

优胜劣汰的高质量的股票市场是金融服务经济和供给侧改革的关键。本文使用90多个财务特征指标“大数据”和多种机器学习方法提取基本面信息，对上市公司质量进行评价并构建基本面综合质量指数，研究基本面质量与股价表现的关联关系。研究分析，上市公司基本面综合质量指数对股价表现具有显著为正的预测能力。其中，由偏最小二乘法构建的质量指数对股票横截面收益的预测能力最强，年化收益接近38%，且CAPM、三因子和五因子模型对此无解释能力。我们还进一步从行为金融和宏观经济周期视角探索公司质量对股票价格的影响机制，发现市场情绪、有限套利、公司投资决策和经济周期都有助于深入理解上市公司质量溢价现象。本文研究表明，我国股票市场定价效率已经稳步提高，进入了“优胜劣汰”和价值投资阶段。

机构投资者对提升上市公司质量和市场有效性发挥了重要作用。然而，由于它们的注意力是有限的，极端收益的冲击可能会导致其注意力分散，从而抵减前述的正面效果。本文基于2008-2018年A股上市公司样本的研究表明，机构投资者注意力分散导致股价信息含量显著下降。这一关系在企业所处的治理环境较差、内部治理水平较低、信息环境较差、股票流动性较低的情况下更为显著。进一步研究表明，机构投资者注意力力分散导致上市公司的信息披露质量、机构投资者实地调研频率、交易活跃度均显著下降，且显著降低了企业价值。此外，基金层面的实证分析表明，注意力分散显著降低了基金投资组合的收益率。综上所述，机构投资者注意力分散导致其外部监督效果和知情交易积极性均显著下降，从而降低了市场的定价效率。本文的发现揭示了防范化解重大风险、培育资本市场机构投资者、提升上市公司质量等不同政策目标之间的有机关联，凸显了系统性地进行高标准市场体系建设的重要意义。

We examine a unique one day lockup constraint in stock markets in China and contribute to the understanding of impact of non-marketability on asset prices. Buyers of Chinese stocks are subject to a one day lockup and cannot sell their shares until the next day, but warrant traders are free of such restrictions. We demonstrate that the lockup creates a price discount relative to stock value implied by warrants. We show that the discount decreases throughout the trading day and that investors tend to purchase stocks when the lockup becomes less binding. The paper provides implications to value illiquid assets.

After the Chinese stock market dropped one-third in three weeks in June 2015, reportedly driven by lack of liquidity due to the fire sales by margin buyers, the government used hundreds of billions of dollars to purchase shares directly in the secondary market. We validate that margin trading is associated with the surge of stock market before the crisis. We find that firms in systemically important industries, firms with more political ties, and firms with high risk of falling into liquidity spiral are more likely to be rescued. More importantly, compared with matched un-rescued firms, rescued firms did not have higher stock return, but experienced higher volatility, lower liquidity, and lower price efficiency afterwards. Market quality even deteriorated further after the subsequent sale of the purchased shares. Last, rescued firms experience a modest decline in operational performance, while capital structure and investment remained the same. Our evidence suggest that a direct purchase rescue in the secondary stock market could generate serious unintended consequences.