This study investigates how economic policy uncertainty (EPU) affects venture capital (VC) contract terms. Using a unique database of contracts between VCs and entrepreneurial firms in China, we provide evidence that VCs include more investor-friendly covenants in contracts when EPU increases. Our findings hold across a battery of robustness checks, including addressing endogeneity concerns and using alternative EPU measures. Our mechanism analysis shows that higher investment risk and increased VCs’ bargaining power might be plausible reasons why EPU positively affects the presence of investor-friendly covenants in VC contracts.

This study investigates the impact of CIO on the Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance. Our analysis is based on a panel dataset comprising 2395 Chinese listed companies throughout the period from 2007 to 2020. Evidence from empirical results shows that CIO is positively correlated with ESG performance. In other words, CIO enhance the corporate ESG performance. The issue of endogeneity was duly considered, and appropriate measures were made to address it. Furthermore, robustness tests were conducted, and the findings remained consistent and reliable. The examination of the mechanism indicates that CIO enhance internal control quality that facilitates the advancement of ESG activities within firms. This paper contributes to the existing body of knowledge by examining the impact of external governance systems on the promotion of ESG activities in Chinese enterprises. This study adds to the existing body of scholarship on the implications of Common institutional ownership. Findings recommend several possible policy and economic ramifications that might support Chinese enterprises in their endeavors to incorporate ESG initiatives and contribute to the overall sustainability of society.

This paper improves the expected return variable and the corresponding trend factor documented by Han, Zhou, and Zhu (2016) and reveals the incremental predictability of this novel expected return measure on stock returns in the Chinese stock market. Portfolio analyses and firm-level cross-sectional regressions indicate a significantly positive relation between the improved expected return and future returns. These results are robust to the short-, intermediate-, and long-term price trends and other derived expected returns. Our improved trend factor also outperforms all trend factors constructed by other expected returns. Additionally, we observe that lottery demand, capital states, return synchronicity, investor sentiment and information uncertainty can help explain the superior performance of the improved expected return measure in the Chinese stock market.

As digital technologies proliferate, firms increasingly leverage digital transformation strategically, necessitating new orientations attuned to digital technological change. This study investigates how digital orientation (DORI)- the philosophy of harnessing digital technology scope, digital capabilities, digital ecosystem coordination, and digital architecture configuration for competitive advantage – influences firms’ environmental, social, and governance performance (ESG_per). Analysis of Chinese A-share firms from 2010-2019 reveals DORI is associated with superior ESG_per, operating through the mediating mechanism of enhanced digital finance (DIFIN) as a fund-providing facilitator for sustainability initiatives. Additional analysis uncovers important heterogeneities – private firms, centrally owned state-owned enterprises, politically connected, and emerging companies exhibit the strongest DORI - ESG_per linkages. Prominently, the study findings are validated through a battery of robustness tests, including instrumental variable methods, and propensity score matching. Overall, the results underscore the need for firms to purposefully develop multifaceted digital orientation and furnishes novel theoretical insights and practical implications regarding DORI’s role in improving ESG_per.

This article examines the impact of the Green Financial Regulatory Policy on corporate strategic ESG behavior against the backdrop of the 2017 policy integration of “green finance” into the Macro-Prudential Assessment by the central bank. The research identifies that GFRP may shift corporate focus towards the disclosure of ESG performance while neglecting the actual practices of ESG engagement, potentially inducing firms to engage in ESG greenwashing. It is further posited that corporate green perception and executives’ environmental backgrounds serve as primary mechanisms in this dynamic. Additionally, the policy efficacy of GFRP on strategic ESG behavior exhibits heterogeneity

Developing an early warning model for company financial crises holds critical significance in robust risk management and ensuring the enduring stability of the capital market. Although the existing research has achieved rich results, the disadvantages of insufficient text information mining and poor model performance still exist. To alleviate the problem of insufficient text information mining, we collect related financial and annual report data from 820 listed companies in mainland China from 2018 to 2023 by using sophisticated web crawlers and advanced text sentiment analysis technologies and using missing value interpolation, standardization, and data balancing to build multi-source datasets of companies. Ranking the feature importance of multi-source data promotes understanding the formation of financial crises for companies. In the meantime, a novel Attention-based Fuzzy Neural Network (AFNN) was proposed to parse multi-source data to forecast financial crises among listed companies. Experimental results indicate that AFNN exhibits significantly improved performance compared to other advanced methods.

The e-CNY, with its information transparency and financial inclusion, activates an innovative solution to cure the financing obstacles among the small and medium enterprises in China. The research establishes a game model between enterprises and commercial banks embedded in information asymmetry, and incorporates the e-CNY payment choice within the framework to analyse the cure effect of e-CNY on enterprise financing obstacles. With equilibrium results calculated, it simulates the outcomes of changing parameters on the behaviours of enterprises and banks. The findings involve that, based on the incremental utility of e-CNY and subsidies attached, e-CNY is preferred in transaction, reducing the bad debt risk caused by misalignment when both achieving excess returns. The People’s Bank of China must strengthen a more transparent publicity of e-CNY and structure an inclusive system of financial regulation to well use digital currency and realise high-quality socio-economic development.

This research employs the Alkire-Foster approach to measure multidimensional poverty between 2012 and 2020 in China, followed by examining the role of the three-pillar pension system in mitigating household multidimensional poverty. With the China Family Panel Studies data, our measurement uncovers the sustainable effects and mechanisms of household participation in the multi-pillar pension system on poverty mitigation. The results indicate that more participation in the pension system mitigates the probability of being trapped in multidimensional poverty. The findings reveal the significance of state social insurance, enterprise annuity, and individual commercial insurance. The mitigation effect of market-oriented pillars is achieved through more investment in and consumption for livelihood assets. Based upon the sustainable livelihoods framework, livelihood assets ameliorate household capabilities in human, natural, financial, and psychological capital against risks, shocks, and uncertainties. Our research contributes to the knowledge of how household participation in pension pillars sustainably mitigates multidimensional poverty through micro-level mechanisms and to the policy praxis of why a facilitating state is called for poverty mitigation from the perspective of new structural economics.

The general financial theory predicts a carbon premium, as brown stocks bear greater uncertainty under climate transition. However, a contrary green premium has been identified in China, as evidenced by the return spread between green and brown sectors. The aggregated climate transition sentiment, measured from news data using a large language model, explains 12%-33% of the variability in the anomalous alpha. This factor intensifies after China announced its national commitments. The sentiment-driven green premium is attributed to speculative trading by retail investors targeting green “concept stocks.” Additionally, the discussion highlights the advantages of large language models over lexicon-based sentiment analysis.

李左斌是自学寿险常识歌诀学案试验设计创始人。 邓小平理论主张：编写最精教材。 1980 年，中央财政金融学 院（现中央财经大学）率先恢复国际保险专业，标志着我国保险教育 正式拉开帷幕。中国保险业起步晚，基础薄弱，覆盖面不宽，全民保 险意识整体还比较缺乏，保险知识普及程度较低。 1997 年某大夫说:我是医生，我的儿子不需要保险!国民保险知 识如此匮乏，保险意识如此薄弱，觉得保险是奢侈品，视保险为负担， 拒绝保险，必将阻碍并制约中国保险业发展。 中国入世后，面对经济全球化和保险国际化大趋势，中国保险 两大重任:宣传保险知识，提高国民保险意识。人们勇敢迎接外资保 险严峻挑战，把普及保险知识、培养国民保险意识放在首位，人人明 确人生始终存在：生得生存、老得养老、病得治病、残得吃饭、亡得 送终等自然社会风险人为事故，人们只有将这些风险卖给寿险公司， 家庭一旦出险，风险即变金钱;反之，出险即危险。 2006 年 6 月 26 日，《国务院关于保险业改革发展的若干意见》 明确提出，要将保险教育纳入中小学课程，普及保险知识，提高全民 风险和保险意识。 从经济学角度看，保险是对客观存在的未来风险进行转移，把不 确定性损失转变为确定性成本（保费），是风险管理的一种有效手段。 而从社会学角度看，保险体现了人们的互助精神。发达的保险业是社 会进步的重要标志。 1997.7.1 至 2003.9.1，笔者学白居易诗特点，寿险理论实 践结合，竭尽全力完善寿险知识教材，超前编写最精教材《寿险 常识歌诀》：浓缩精华，介绍终身受益、必用寿险常识与技能， 其核心在于实用，使用基础性强，少用术语，具体语言实例，简 洁精练，生动易懂，明白如话，旨在中外人们：一读就懂，一学 就会，学而能用，寿险常识。 中国寿险事业拓荒者，优秀保险代理人，华源保险经纪人李左斌， 超前编写最精教材《人寿保险常识歌诀》发表在香港《教育科学杂 志》（2003 年第四期 63~65 页），献给人们，方便人们背诵掌握 终身受益《寿险常识歌诀》，为普及寿险常识，为保险代理人、保 险经纪人，为全日制、为成人高等教育保险本科专业应试考试取得 优异成绩，做一件实事。 笔者铭记哈佛心理学博士教诲:好成绩必须死记硬背。将保险教 育纳入中小学课程，每轮两年科普：人寿保险常识。自学寿险常识 歌诀学案，具体做法——每周一节，1|10 时间跨学科中国保险教育。 每周一歌，背诵一节，两年科普，寿险常识。（20✘2X2 二 80 节） 每周一人负责:更新抄一节在学校门口、班级黑板报栏目“每 周一歌”《寿险歌诀》。自抄一节《寿险常识歌诀》；自读:回家 自由朗读一节《寿险常识歌诀》至会背；自背:上课齐背一节《寿 险常识歌诀》；查背:师找不会背“一节《寿险常识歌诀》”滥竽 充数南郭先生，并且落实全体背诵；自用默写:课后专用本默写， 主编《寿险常识歌诀》。 2006 年，笔者李左斌福建省自学考试成人高等教育保险本科 专业肄业，填补成人高等教育保险本科专业空白。自编《寿险常识 歌诀》是多快好省学好寿险知识捷径，贵在落实、竞争、乐趣、 思维、习惯， 能事半功倍掌握寿险知识， 致力于让寿险走进千 家万户人们心里！普及保险知识，提高全民风险和保险意识，最终 全民参加人寿保险。