新一轮经济复苏的刺激政策绝大多数来自银行资金的支持。短期内商业银行面临增资扩 股的需要。如何从股权结构的安排上来促进其治理优化，从而防范其冒险行为产生显得更为 重要。我们利用沪深两市上市的 14 家商业银行的面板数据实证研究商业银行冒险行为的内 在动力机制与治理机制。结果表明，第一大股东股权越集中，银行倾向于承担较高的风险。 当控股股东的终极控制权大于其在分红当中现金流权时，银行倾向于更大的冒险行为。而且 银行的冒险行为倾向于推高不良贷款率。因此， 如何在银行业的变革中关注股权结构的安排， 特别是股东的终极控制权与现金流权的分离，有助于进一步防范商业银行的风险。

This study examines for evidence of peer effects in the trading decisions of individual investors from Mainland China, a country whose cultural and social structures are vastly different from those of Western countries. Cultural differences, as widely documented, play a significant role in social interactions and word-of-mouth behavior. In contrast to U.S. studies, we find robust evidence that the trading decisions of Chinese investors are influenced, via word-ofmouth, by those of their peers who maintain brokerage accounts at the same branch, but not by those whose accounts are maintained at another branch located in the same city.

政治关系影响了公司价值，但对于如何影响公司价值还知之甚少。本文从资本结构与产品市场竞争关系的角度检验政治关系如何影响公司价值。本文使用1998-2007年中国上市公司中制造行业的公司数据检验公司政治关系对资本结构与产品市场竞争关系的影响，以及不同融资约束下这种影响的差异。本文发现政治关系提高了产品市场竞争对资本结构的敏感性。在使用两种不同的融资约束划分标准后，本文发现不同融资约束下公司政治关系的价值不同，对于存在融资约束的公司，公司政治关系更深地影响了产品市场竞争对资本结构的敏感性，因此具有更高的价值。本文的证据支持了政治关系有助于公司获取融资资源从而提高公司价值的观点。

本文构建了全流通背景下的大股东行为模型，对大股东行为转变的关键因素进行了分析。运用大股东与其控股上市公司关联交易数据，实证检验了股改后大股东行为转变及其对公司绩效的影响。研究表明，发生关联交易的上市公司交易前具有较高的股权集中度和较低的市盈率，交易后业绩显著提升。与股改前上市公司的关联交易相比，股改后的关联交易并非为获取再融资资格，大股东通过关联交易侵害上市公司利益的行为明显下降。股改后关联交易规模与控股股东持股比例正相关，与交易前上市公司的业绩和市盈率负相关，表明股价收益成为影响大股东行为的重要变量。对上市公司业绩的多元回归分析显示，公司绩效与关联交易规模、交易前大股东持股比例显著正相关。因此，实证结果验证了我们的模型：全流通下大股东行为模式发生了明显转变，即从股改前的侵害上市公司利益转变为股改后支持上市公司发展。

We investigate how social capital in both the home and host countries affects foreign direct investment in high tech firms. Difference in the social capital (trustworthiness) among provinces of the host country, China, is shown to matter in foreign companies’ choice of location, ownership type, and investment in R&D. We find that the provinces in China characterized by high levels of social capital attract more foreign investment. We also find that the likelihood of foreign investors establishing joint ventures with local partners increases with the level of social capital prevailing in that area. Foreign high tech firms conduct more R&D investment and hire more R&D personnel in high-social-capital provinces. Moreover, foreign-owned firms located in high-socialcapital areas keep improving their intensity of R&D investments over time. By contrast, in lowsocial- capital areas, foreign high tech firms do not improve and actually diminish their R&D intensity over time. We further show that the social capital in the country of origin (the home country) of a foreign company also affects its investment decisions in China. Cultural difference between the home country and the host country magnifies the foreign company’s weighing of the regional social capital difference in the host country; foreign companies from higher uncertainty avoidance home country prefer to invest in regions with higher social capital in the host country; on the other hand, kinship decreases the need to deal with strangers, and thus reduces the reliance on the provincial social capital.

This paper examines the effects of the agency costs on firm value in 156 Chinese publicly listed companies with individual ultimate owners between 2002 and 2007. The ultimate owners’ agency costs, as measured by the divergence between control rights and cash flow rights, are shown to negatively and significantly affect firm value, as measured by the market-to-book ratio of assets (an approximation of Tobin’s Q). As the agency costs grow, the stock returns decrease around the connected party transaction announcements, and firms are more likely to engage in value-destroying connected party transactions. These effects are particularly strong for some types of connected party transactions, notably loan guarantees and direct fund transfers. Further, as the agency costs grow, the firms violate laws more frequently and the nature of legal violations becomes more severe. Evidence from an exogenous policy shock, the non-tradable share reform confirms that higher agency costs cause more unfavorable stock market reactions to connected party transaction announcements.

In this paper we argue that ine? cient bank loans can reduce the value of borrowing ?rms when the expropriation of minority share- holders by controlling shareholders is a major concern. Using data from Chinese ?nancial market, we ?nd that bank loan announcements generate signi?cantly negative abnormal returns to borrowing ?rms. The share devaluation following loan announcements are concentrated in ?rms that are perceived to be more vulnerable to controlling share- holders?expropriation. In addition, we ?nd weak evidence that bank quality mitigates the negative market reactions.

This paper studies the determinants of cash holdings and the marginal value of cash in China’s share-issued privatized firms from 1994 – 2007. We first analyze the effects of firm characteristics on corporate cash holdings and find empirical evidence that is largely consistent with U.S. and other international evidence in previous studies. Specifically, we find that smaller, more profitable and high growth firms hold more cash. Debt and net working capital are negatively related to cash holdings, suggesting that debt and working capital may be treated as cash substitutes. We also find that state ownership is negatively related to cash holdings. Firms with high state ownership are less financially constrained in that they have better access to credit in the mostly state-owned bank lending environment. We further examine the cross-sectional variations in the marginal value of corporate cash holdings. We find that the marginal value of cash declines with higher level of cash and higher level of debt, consistent with evidence in U.S. firms. Our most important finding is that the marginal value of cash declines as the equity ownership retained by the state increases. For the average firm in our sample, the value of an additional dollar is $0.94. An additional dollar is valued $0.33-$0.47 higher in firms with zero percent state ownership than in firms with 50 percent or higher state ownership. This difference is both statistically and economically significant.

Financing of and investing in R&D are prone to risks of appropriation by competitors, information asymmetry, and agency problems. Although legal protection of intellectual property (IP) rights at the national level is necessary to encourage investing in R&D, we show that the effective enforcement at the local level is critical. We focus on the impact of provincial level IP rights enforcement on the financing of and investing in R&D, using a unique and rich database of high technology firms. These firms are located in twenty-eight provinces/districts throughout China. The enforcement of IP rights differs at the provincial level, although the firms are under the same set of national and international laws. To identify the causal effect of provincial level IP rights enforcement on firm behavior, we use several approaches to deal with the issues of endogeneity, reverse causality, and simultaneity. Controlling for provincial institutional factors such as economic development, banking system development, legal system performance, and local government corruption, we find that the enforcement of IP rights positively affects firms’ ability to acquire new external debt (including formal and informal financing) and external equity. Firms in provinces with better enforcement of IP rights invest more funding in R&D, generate more innovation patents, and produce more sales from new products. We also find better enforcement of IP rights encourages financing of and investment in R&D in foreign and ethnic joint ventures. The results confirm that enforcement of IP rights matters even in China. Our paper provides firm level evidence that financing of and investing in R&D are the channels that link enforcement of IP rights and economic growth.

The Chinese market is characterized by state-controlled and closely held firms as well as significant differences in economic development and legal structures at the provincial level and corporate regulations that require firms seeking external financing to show a history of dividend payment. Using a sample of listed Chinese firms, we investigate the likelihood of paying dividends, different forms of dividends and market reactions to various dividend announcements. We find that profitable, low leverage, high cash holding, stronger shareholder protection firms, and those firms with state ownership prior to listing and undertaking subsequent equity offerings are more likely to pay dividends and cash dividends, in particular. Firms appear to cater to investor demands in setting dividend policy; hence firms with a large proportion of non-tradable shares are more likely to pay cash dividends. Consistent with the use of stock dividends to attract the attention of analysts, we also find that growing firms with high levels of retained earnings and greater investment in fixed assets pay stock dividends and these firms’ dividend announcements are associated with significant positive market reactions and increased analyst following.