This study examines the relation between political connections and investment efficiency in China. For listed state-owned enterprises (SOEs), we find that the sensitivity of investment expenditure to investment opportunities is significantly weaker for those with than without political connections. Politically connected SOEs over-invest significantly more than non-connected SOEs. This negative impact of political connections is primarily observed in SOEs controlled by local governments and/or in SOEs without sufficient investment opportunities. However, for private enterprises, investment expenditure is significantly more sensitive to investment opportunities and over-investment is significantly less in politically connected firms than in those without such connections. We further show that over-investment reduces firm value across the board for both SOEs and private enterprises. Taken together, our findings suggest that political connections distort investment behavior, reduce investment efficiency, and damage firm value in listed SOEs in China, but for listed private enterprises, political connections improve investment efficiency, reduce over-investment, and consequently enhance firm value.

Until recently, Chinese companies publicly listed in domestic stock exchanges had two classes of stock: tradable and non-tradable shares. These two classes of stock had the same voting, cash flow, and all other legal rights except that non-tradable shares cannot be transferred at the open markets. From 2005 to mid-2007, Chinese government completed the ownership reform, so-called the Split Share Structure Reform (SSSR), to convert all non-tradable shares into tradable shares. Under this reform process, the holders of non-tradable shares had to negotiate with those of tradable shares to determine how much liquidity premium, or the compensation ratio, non-tradable shareholders have to pay to tradable shareholders in order to obtain the liquidity right. This paper starts with a theoretical model to identify the fundamental factors, including price discount before and after the SSSR reform, the percentage of non-tradable shares in total shares, the volatility of tradable share price, and the lockup period, that should determine the compensation ratio. We show that those factors except price discount before the reform are statistically significant in determining the compensation ratio proposed by non-tradable shareholders. We further show that the agency problems also reveal themselves in the compensation ratios. Specifically, when a firm is controlled by a governmental agency, the compensation is higher. However, the compensation is lower when more concentrated in the top ten holders, especially when shares are held by mutual funds. Thus, the evidence is consistent with the notion that the agency problem exists in China’s fund managers. Finally, we show that the existence of agency problems also reduce the importance of fundamental factors in determining the compensation ratios.

本文以2002-2007年我国“系族企业”所涉及的280家/年的上市成员企业为研究样本，通过对其内部资本市场效率进行的实证检验，我们发现：从总体上看，市场化环境好的地区，其内部资本市场是有效率的。相比于非国有的系族企业，国有系族的内部资本市场是无效率的。即使是在金融业市场化程度高的地区，国有系族企业的内部资本市场也是无效率的。而国有系族企业内部，由地方政府控制的系族企业的内部资本市场是无效率的。

This paper empirically investigates the determinants of financing decisions in Chinese listed firms, using 3,196 firm-year observations from the Shanghai Stock Exchange during the period 2001–2005. Thereby, we investigate the effects of differences in institutions across Chinese provinces and municipalities, and compare the financing choices of state-owned and private-controlled enterprises. We find that a better legal environment negatively affects the debt ratio and the proportion of debt that consists of bank loans in SOEs as well as private-controlled enterprises. Conversely, regional banking development positively influences these two variables. If anything, these effects of the rule of law and regional banking development on leverage are stronger for private-controlled firms. SOEs have lower debt ratios in regions with better stock market access, while private-controlled firms rely less on bank loans in regions with more government intervention in business. Finally, we document that SOEs’ overall debt ratio and composition of debt are comparable to those of private-controlled firms.

We investigate the role of managers’ country of origin in leverage decisions using data on foreign joint ventures in China. By focusing on foreign joint ventures in a single country, we are able to hold constant the financing environment, eliminate the effects of formal institutions in the foreign managers’ home country, and consequently reveal the effects of informal institutions such as national culture on corporate finance decisions. Using cultural values of embeddedness, mastery, and uncertainty avoidance to explain country of origin effects, we find that national culture has significant explanatory power in the financial leverage decisions of foreign joint ventures in China. Country-level variation is evident in capital structure and appears to work through choices of firm characteristics, industry affiliation, ownership structure, and region of investment.

We investigate the choice problem in the massive Chinese restructuring campaign that has been described as “grasping the large and letting go of the small,” in which a third of the million or so Chinese state-owned enterprises were either corporatized or privatized. Corporatization differs from privatization in the Chinese context, as in the former case the state remains a large shareholder, whereas in the latter case it has little or no ownership. Using a panel of provincial level statistics, we show that greater local employment pressure, less local fiscal pressure, and a more corrupt local business environment all lead to a lesser likelihood that privatization will be chosen over corporatization. Privatization is found to yield consistent efficiency gains over corporatization in terms of employment and firm profitability. Our evidence is supportive of the theoretical framework of Boycko, Shleifer, and Vishny (1996), who model privatization as an endogenous decision in which politicians trade off employment pressure against public fiscal interest.

终极所有权结构如何影响公司的债务期限结构是公司治理研究中的一个重要问题。以2003-2005年只发行A股的824家非金融上市公司的平衡面板数据为样本，通过随机效应模型实证检验终极所有权结构与债务期限结构之间的关系。总的说来，实证结果支持这样的结论：（1）终极控制股东的现金流权越大，掠夺的成本也越大，上市公司会使用更多的长期债务；（2）两权偏离度越大，债务融资的代理成本会越大，上市公司会使用更多的短期债务；（3）随着两权偏离度的增大，家族式终极控制股东对财务困境担心的壕沟效应会促使公司延长债务期限，使用更多的长期债务，而差的公司治理使得债权人仅愿意为政府终极控制的公司提供更多的短期债务。

保险业作为金融体系三大支柱之一，在低碳经济理念下如何找准自身定位，适应国策需求、服务低碳经济，这既是对保险业提出的一项严峻挑战，又是保险业加快自身建设和发展的一个难得机遇。

在宏观调控层面判断流动性是否合理的标准，主要取决于流动性是否能保证通货膨胀维系在合理水平（并以此促进经济增长）。由于经济发展的阶段不同，发达国家与发展中国家实际通胀率以及可容忍的通胀率可能都存在差异。流动性的波动较大，甚至受心理预期、投机等多种因素影响，往往难以预测。中国逐步“试错”的渐进性宏观调控方法具有较强的现实科学性和中国式哲学的逻辑性，甚至在传统货币政策理论方面，也有创新性的贡献。

近期国内外资产价格的快速上涨又一次引发了大家对货币政策和资产价格关系的热烈讨论。本文对有关重要理论和经典分析框架进行回顾，并对现实情况进行一些探讨。资产价格可以通过两种方式影响货币政策：资产价格既可以作为传导货币政策的途径，也可以是货币当局所使用信息的重要部分。我们用经典的Bordo－Jeanne理论框架分析了货币当局在资产价格膨胀时所面临的困境。然后我们以美国为例，用两种不同的实证方法探讨了美联储是否“真的”受到了资产价格波动的影响。最后我们还结合中国的现状进行分析。