State-owned capital and corporate social responsibility of private-holding companies: evidence from China

The undertaking of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a topic of widespread concern in society. Utilising a sample of 9872 private-holding companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen securities markets from 2009 to 2019, this study examines the impact of state-owned capital on CSR activities. We find that CSR is enhanced when the proportion of state-owned capital in a private-holding listed company exceeds 5 percent. The appointment of directors, supervisors, and senior management by state-owned shareholders, and the participation of state-owned investment in company operation further promote the fulfilment of CSR in private-holding listed companies. This research not only enriches the literature on the economic consequences of state-owned equity holdings in private companies, but also provides empirical evidence regarding the outcomes of improvement of corporate governance mechanisms.     

外资开放、市场分割与产业升级——基于双循环新发展格局视角的探讨

文章首先通过定量识别《外商投资产业指导目录》，构造出我国外资开放度指标，然后，采用价格法测算了我国省际地区市场分割程度，同时借助贸易增加值核算框架测度了我国各省市制造业细分行业的产业升级；在此基础上，将交互模型与非线性模型相结合，实证考察了市场分割视角下外资开放对产业升级的非线性影响。研究发现：第一，外资开放与产业升级之间存在"倒U型"关系。第二，市场分割的弱化会对外资开放与产业升级之间的"倒U型"关系起到缓解，甚至翻转的作用，特别是在外资开放程度较高时，外资开放对产业升级的抑制作用会随着市场分割弱化而得以缓解，甚至转变为促进作用。换言之，我国在持续深化外资开放以推动产业升级过程中需要配合统一的大市场。第三，在解决内生性问题、替换指标、加入更多控制变量以及剔除部分样本之后，结果依然稳健。上述研究表明，构建"双循环"新发展格局是进一步推动我国产业升级，实现高质量发展的重要战略选择，而打破市场分割促进以统一大市场为基础的国内大循环的畅通是当前阶段重要的突破口。     

创业投资政府引导基金政策扩散研究——基于全国31省数据的事件史分析

创业投资政府引导基金是解决初创企业融资难等市场失灵问题的典型政策工具，本文以2005-2015年全国31个省份数据为例，利用事件史方法分析我国省级创业投资政府引导基金政策的扩散机制。研究发现：创业投资引导基金政策的总体扩散过程主要受到纵向府际关系和政府创新易感性的影响；省级创业投资引导基金政策在时间维度上符合阶梯型累积分布曲线规律，其背后逻辑是不同时期政策创新扩散的动力源和阻力源不同，前期扩散的动力源主要是纵向府际关系和政府创新易感性，经济发展水平对政策扩散存在阻滞作用，而后期扩散的动力源主要是纵向府际关系，企业研发经费支出和省长的相关工作经历对政策扩散存在阻滞作用。本文不仅从公共政策视角加深了对中国创业投资引导基金政策的认识，也丰富和拓宽了已有公共政策扩散的相关成果。     

Earnings manipulation and similarity of annual report disclosure: Evidence from China

The Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) section is an important component of a company's annual report, where the management team provides a textual analysis of the company's performance for investors. Due to the existence of agency problems, management is likely to mask any earnings manipulation in order to maximise their salary, build a corporate empire or obtain more financing, which will reduce the reliability of the company's financial information. Utilising 13,679 Chinese A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2020, this study examines the correlation between management earnings manipulation and annual report MD&A similarity. We find that earnings manipulation leads to increased MD&A similarity in order to reduce the transmission of useful information and thus stymie investors. As such, we recommend that regulatory authorities should monitor the level of similarity and validity of MD&A disclosures in addition to the authenticity of numerical financial information.     

Growth and optimal policies in an R&D-growth model with imperfect international capital mobility

In this paper, we examine the effects of international capital mobility on innovation, growth, and optimal growth policies in a small open economy with R&D-driven growth. Households can borrow funds from an imperfect international capital market to finance their investment in R&D firms. We show that the economy can reach a higher growth rate if international capital is more mobile. This result is consistent with recent empirical findings. Moreover, we show that the common growth-enhancing policies, such as patent protection and the R&D subsidies, have an additional negative welfare effect when households can access the international capital market. Accordingly, the optimal patent protection and R&D subsidy should be smaller when the degree of international capital mobility is higher.     

Love thy neighbour: Evidence from capital structure decisions

We examine how the peer effects arising not only from the leading firm but also from a slightly better performing firm affect the capital structure decisions of a firm. There is a large body of literature documenting the importance of peer effects, but it is unclear whether managers pay close attention to activities of slightly better performers. This study uses both book- and market-value based approaches to estimate the peer effect measures. Our analysis shows that: (1) our peer effect measures induce the convergence of the follower firms' capital structure towards better performing firms; and (2) the capital structure converges more towards a slightly better performer.     

Do investors affect financial analysts’ behavior? Evidence from short sellers

We examine how short sellers affect financial analysts’ forecast behavior using a natural experiment that relaxes short-sale constraints. We find that increased ease of short selling improves analyst earnings forecast quality by reducing forecast bias and increasing forecast accuracy. The improvements can be explained by both the disciplining pressure from short sellers and increased price efficiency from incorporating information in a timely manner. Although it is well documented that financial analysts can affect investors, our paper provides novel evidence on how sophisticated investors, short sellers, can affect analysts.