How much finance is in climate finance? A bibliometric review,critiques, and future research directions

This study describes and analyses the research hotspots and evolution trends in climate finance research. Seven literature clusters that elucidate how different perspectives constitute the research landscape in climate finance and two main research hotspots that form the climate finance domain are identified. The empirical results also show that the research priorities of climate finance are still less “finance-based”. In the future, finance scholars should pay more attention to the financial dimension of climate finance. Finally, the research gaps within the existing climate finance literature are identified, and 35 research questions for future research are proposed.     

绿色金融、绿色创新与经济高质量发展

在可持续增长理论的基础上,本文将减排技术内生化,建立带有环境约束并包含金融部门的经济增长模型,解释了绿色金融通过支持绿色创新提升经济增长质量的内在机制。这一理论得到了基于中国省级面板数据中介效应分析的支持。本文为绿色金融的经济学建模提供了新的思路,推进了绿色金融的“功能”理论,论证了绿色金融对经济增长质量影响的“绿色创新渠道”,这意味着绿色金融不限于对少数清洁行业的支持,针对高污染、高能耗行业内部环保技术升级的金融服务也至关重要,是未来绿色金融政策需要关注的问题。     

How do corporate political connections influence financial reporting? A synthesis of the literature

A large stream of research has analyzed the effects of corporate political connections (CPCs) on firms, including first evidence on their effects on financial reporting behavior. However, the evidence so far is inconclusive, and attempts to explain the causality of effects on reporting are limited. In this article, we present the results of a systematic review of the literature on CPCs. We draw on findings in the accounting, finance, and economics literature and derive a framework that identifies four channels through which CPCs affect financial reporting. Our review of the literature suggests that effects of political connections tend to be more ambiguous than suggested by individual studies that often offer directional hypotheses. We also identify eight distinct types of political connectedness and discuss their interrelations and the proxies used in the literature to measure them.     

城市化影响金融业竞争力了吗？ ——个理论模型及来自江苏省的证据

摘在已有文献的基础上,本文构建了一个城市化影响金融业竞争力的理论模型,推导结果表明,城市化对金融业竞争力同时存在积聚效应和负向效应。随后本文利用江苏省面板数据进行实证分析,研究结果表明,城市化对金融业竞争力的影响存在不确定性：城市化本身有助于提升金融业竞争力,工资成本起到了增强金融业竞争力的作用,但住房成本削弱了金融业竞争力。金融业能够起到优化配置经济资源的作用,在发挥金融业支持城市化建设这一作用的同时,我们需要关注城市化提升金融业竞争力的路径和对策,力争达成城市化和金融业发展并行不悖的良好境界。     

Are related-party transactions beneficial or detrimental in emerging markets? New evidence of financial services agreements from China

This paper examines a new and underexplored form of related-party transactions in which Chinese listed companies sign financial services agreements with affiliated finance companies within the same business group. With FSAs, listed companies can readily finance through internal capital markets. However, some concerns controlling shareholders can use FSAs to embezzle funds of listed companies legitimately, thereby expropriating the wealth of minority shareholders. Using a staggered difference-in-differences model with fixed effects, we empirically examine the economic consequences of FSAs. We document that FSAs are detrimental to listed companies' market valuation and operating performance. This phenomenon mainly concentrates on companies without financial constraints and those with lower bankruptcy risks. Further analysis shows that sound corporate governance could inhibit the signing of FSAs ex-ante. This paper contributes to the literature on the economic consequences of related-party transactions in emerging markets. It also provides empirical support that the internal capital market of business groups in China is inefficient and offers controlling shareholders opportunities for tunneling.     

A Comparative Literature Survey of Islamic Finance and Banking

There has been large-scale growth in Islamic finance and banking in Muslim countries and around the world during the last twenty years. This growth is influenced by factors including the introduction of broad macroeconomic and structural reforms in financial systems, the liberalization of capital movements, privatization, the global integration of financial markets, and the introduction of innovative and new Islamic products. Islamic finance is now reaching new levels of sophistication. However, a complete Islamic financial system with its identifiable instruments and markets is still very much at an early stage of evolution. Many problems and challenges relating to Islamic instruments, financial markets, and regulations must be addressed and resolved. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive comparative review of the literature on the Islamic financial system. Specifically, we discuss the basic features of the Islamic finance and banking. We also introduce Islamic financial instruments in order to compare them to existing Western financial instruments and discuss the legal problems that investors in these instruments may encounter. The paper also gives a preliminary empirical assessment of the performance of Islamic banking and finance, and highlights the regulations, challenges and problems in the Islamic banking market.     

普惠金融究竟如何影响居民生活?——来自我国省际层面的经验证据

我国社会的主要矛盾已经转化为人民日益增长的对美好生活的需要和不平衡、不充分的发展之间的矛盾。普惠金融是解决地区发展不平衡、城乡发展不平衡的有力举措。当前,普惠金融研究聚焦在银行业与居民收入,未将非银金融业与居民消费纳入考虑;此外,将普惠金融指标的波动性作为权重来构建普惠金融指数,也缺乏经济学含义。本文首次根据各省份五项金融业全口径普惠发展指标,基于经济的相关性设定指标权重,采用加权几何平均法构建省际普惠金融综合指数,从收入和消费双重视角实证研究普惠金融对居民生活的异质性影响。研究结果表明,普惠金融对各地区居民的收入和消费以及边际消费倾向等均有正向刺激作用,且刺激作用的大小与居民的收入和消费水平成正比,因而,普惠金融对城镇居民收入和消费以及边际消费倾向等的刺激作用大于农村居民。鉴此,本文提出普惠金融的发展重心应向欠发达地区、农村地区倾斜的政策建议。     

The Public Policy Debate on Investors' Need for Disclosure Regulation: Accounting Historians' Help Wanted?*/ LE DÉBAT PUBLIC SUR LES BESOINS DES INVESTISSEURS EN MATIÈRE DE RÉGLEMENTATION DE L'INFORMATION: FAUT‐IL L'AIDE DES HISTORIENS DE LA COMPTABILITÉ?

This paper explores how research in accounting history can contribute to the important public policy debate regarding investors' need for disclosure regulation. Accounting, finance, and economics researchers and practitioners argue for, as well as against, disclosure regulation. The debate remains theoretical, however, because empirical studies are virtually nonexistent. This paper reviews five contexts in which accounting historians can begin a search for empirical insights concerning the costs, benefits, externalities, and effects on stakeholders of disclosure regulation. The paper's investigation of the accounting history literature suggests that accounting historians could improve the quality of the debate and help accommodate broader interests or alternative solutions to financial crises.     

Causal inference in empirical archival financial accounting research

This study discusses the challenges and opportunities of establishing causal inference in empirical archival financial accounting research. Causal inference requires identification of a theoretically predicted causal mechanism in a research setting optimized to avoid endogenous causes and using a suitable statistical inference strategy. After briefly describing potential research design strategies, I analyze the frequency of causal studies published in leading business and economics journals. I identify causal studies by their abstract including an explicit reference to their causal nature and find that they are significantly more common in the areas of economics and finance compared to other business-oriented research disciplines like accounting. Also, the extent to which research designs are optimized for causal inference differs significantly between causal empirical archival studies in the area of financial accounting and finance. I discuss potential reasons for this gap and make some suggestions on how the demand for and supply of well-designed causal studies in the area of empirical archival financial accounting research might be increased.     

正规金融与非正规金融:机制、效率与实证挑战

正规金融与非正规金融的定位和关系,不仅是重要的学术问题,也是影响间接金融体系改革方向的关键。本文从机制视角建立学理框架,从信息和履约两个基础维度,讨论正规金融与非正规金融的相对效率及决定因素,并通过系统梳理相关文献,指出现有实证研究的成果与挑战;进而结合中国特征,讨论如何提高正规金融与非正规金融的效率,最后提出未来研究方向。本文认为,正规金融与非正规金融因信息和履约机制不同而各有其独立存在价值,其相对效率取决于不同经济发展阶段的社会网络基础和征信、法律体系,现有实证文献对两者作用的分歧主要源于分类、样本局限和内生性处理。本文从机制视角进行分析,体现了正规金融和非正规金融的金融属性,为探索相关领域学术研究和政策制定提供启示。     

How Theories of Financial Intermediation and Corporate Risk-Management Influence Bank Risk-Taking Behavior

This paper examines the rationales for risk-taking and risk-management behavior from both a corporate finance and a banking perspective. After combining the theoretical insights from the corporate finance and banking literatures related to hedging and risk-taking, the paper reviews empirical tests based on these theories to determine which of these theories are best supported by the data. Managerial incentives are the most consistently supported rationale for describing how banks manage risk. In particular, moderate/high levels of equity ownership reduce bank risk while positive amounts of stock option grants increase bank risk-taking behavior. The review of empirical tests in the banking literature also suggests that financial intermediaries coordinate different aspects of risk (e.g., credit and interest rate risk) in order to maintain a certain level of total risk. The empirical results indicate hedgeable risks such as interest rate risk represent only one dimension of the risk-management problem. This implies empirical tests of the theories of corporate risk-management need to consider individual sub-components of total risk and the bank's ability to trade these risks in a competitive financial market. This finding is consistent with the reality that banks have non-zero expected financial distress costs and bank managers cannot fully diversify their bank-related personal investments.     

Why finance theory fails to survive contact with the real world: A fund manager perspective

This paper examines why financial decision theory finds so little application in the real world. A review of the literature identifies shortcomings in research methodologies, and summarises evidence that core finance paradigms prove of limited empirical value. The practitioner perspective is reported based on interviews with 34 fund managers on four continents. These conclude that finance theory is of limited relevance to practitioners because its quantitative approach requires data about the future that are unavailable, and because it ignores practitioner objectives and skill, and the wealth of qualitative data available to them. The paper concludes that future research should better translate practitioner knowledge and practices into improved investment theory.     

Infrastructure Finance and Industrial Takeoff in England

That financial matters did not constrain industrial takeoff in the UK is generally accepted in the historical literature; in contrast, contemporary empirical analyses have found evidence that financial development can be a causal determinant of economic growth. We look to reconcile these findings by concentrating on a particular aspect of industrializing UK where inefficiencies in finance could have had bite: the finance of physical infrastructures. We document the historical record and develop the importance of spatial disaggregation and spillovers in both technological and financial development. We develop a simple model that captures the nature of infrastructure finance within a theory of endogenous growth where financial costs are endogenous. We argue that the conception of the finance‐growth nexus as a largely static, aggregative phenomenon misses out a good deal of complexity and we relate that complexity to a number of implications for regulation of both financial systems and the emergence of infrastructures.     

Corporate finance theory: Introduction to special issue

Theoretical research in corporate finance is critical for our understanding of real-world phenomena, for interpreting empirical results, and for deriving policy implications. We discuss the benefits and limitations of research in corporate finance theory and link them to the nine articles in this special issue on “Corporate Finance Theory.” We provide a perspective on the nine articles in this special issue, and outline our perception of how future research may evolve. We also review several themes that emerge out of the articles, which we think deserve more attention from theorists going forward: interactions between financial markets and corporate finance and dynamic models of corporate decisions, such as capital structure and managerial compensation.     

数字金融、家庭相对收入及脆弱性——兼论多维“鸿沟”的影响

数字金融发展是否有利于提升家庭相对收入并降低家庭脆弱性值得深入研究。基于宏微观匹配数据,本文从相对收入及脆弱性视角考察了数字金融的增收效应及其微观作用机理,并分析了多维“鸿沟”的影响。研究表明,数字金融发展,尤其是使用深度的提升,有利于提升家庭相对收入水平、降低脆弱性。微观作用机制在于,数字金融发展能够有效提升家庭金融可得性和使用性,并促进潜在投资行为和就业创业活动。进一步分析发现,数字金融发展虽然体现了普惠特征,但并未明显打破空间限制,对城镇等发达地区及具有数字设备、受过金融教育等家庭的相对收入及脆弱性展现出更强的作用;对贫困户、无数字设备等家庭的相对收入作用不显著,充分体现了破除多维“鸿沟”的紧迫性。本文为进一步优化数字金融缩小收入差距、降低家庭脆弱性的政策提供了参考。     

Determinants and consequences of debt maturity structure: A systematic review of the international literature

We conduct a systematic review of the international research on the determinants and consequences of debt maturity structure in the accounting, finance, and corporate governance literature. Our review reveals that a large volume of empirical research has been conducted on the determinants of debt maturity structure, and we categorize these determinants into the following five factors: (1) firm specific; (2) tax; (3) corporate governance; (4) country-level institutional; and (5) macroeconomic. The literature on the consequences of debt maturity structure is relatively scant and generally focuses on the effect of debt maturity structure on financial reporting quality and investment and financing decisions. We consider endogeneity as one of the major concerns in the reported empirical studies that, unless addressed satisfactorily, may render some of the findings untenable. Based on the review, we also provide several future research directions.     

Peer effects in corporate advertisement expenditure: Evidence from China

This study investigates whether industry peers affect focal firms’ advertising expenditure decisions and further explores the mechanisms and economic consequences of such effects. We find that peer firms have a significantly positive influence on the focal firm’s advertising expenditure. The results hold after a series of robustness tests. Additionally, the peer effects in advertising expenditure are more salient in industries with intense competition; and when economic policy uncertainty and demand uncertainty is higher. Interestingly, our results show that followers mimic the advertising expenditure of industry leaders, while leaders also react to followers’ advertising expenditure. We also find that the peer effects in advertising expenditure improve firms’ sales and market value. Our study contributes to a better understanding of peer effects on corporate decisions.     

Peer effect in the initial recognition of goodwill

This study investigates the peer effect in the initial recognition of goodwill. We find that firms imitate their peers in the initial recognition of goodwill. The higher the tendency for imitation, the higher the proportion of goodwill recognized. Imitation behavior in the initial recognition of goodwill cannot be explained by information acquisition or rivalry motivations. Instead, we find evidence that managers’ opportunistic motivations explain the peer effect in the initial recognition of goodwill and the overestimation of goodwill arising from imitation tendencies. Executive overconfidence weakens the peer effect but exacerbates the overestimation of goodwill caused by imitation tendencies. Finally, the higher the imitation tendency, the greater the probability and amount of goodwill impairment in the future. This further confirms that the peer effect leads to overestimation of goodwill. The findings of this study enrich the literature on goodwill and provide insightful empirical evidence for regulating goodwill accounting. The results show that the conservatism principle should be reinforced in the initial recognition of goodwill.     

Identifying and treating outliers in finance

Outliers represent a fundamental challenge in the empirical finance research. We investigate whether the routine techniques used in finance research to identify and treat outliers are appropriate for the data structures we observe in practice. Specifically, we propose a multivariate identification strategy that can effectively detect outliers. We also introduce an estimator that minimizes the bias outliers caused in both cross‐sectional and panel regressions and provide outlier mitigation guidance. Using replications of four recently published studies in premier finance journals, we show how adjusting for multivariate outliers can lead to significantly different results.     

气候变化冲击下的涉农信用风险——基于2010-2019年256家农村金融机构的实证研究

气候变化可能导致的经济金融风险已经成为学术界关注的热点问题。本文首先分析了气候变化引发涉农金融风险的传导机制,以2010-2019年256家农村金融机构的经营数据为样本,将标准化后的年均气温作为刻画气候变化程度的核心指标,评估农村金融机构所在县域地理单元的气候变化程度对其信用风险的影响。研究发现,年均气温波动对农村金融机构的信用风险水平存在显著影响,且影响呈现阶段性特征;在4个季度中,冬季气温的波动对信用风险的影响最为突出;虽然城商行与农商行、村镇银行均是立足于服务地方经济发展的商业银行,但由于城商行的业务在地域上和行业上更为分散,气候变化未对其信用风险水平产生显著影响。为此,提出了开展压力测试、实施差异化监管和创新风险缓释工具三个方面的对策建议。本文为管理由气候变化导致的涉农信用风险提供了政策启示和决策参考。