Amid concerns about rising youth bankruptcy rates in Malaysia, this study examines the determinants of savings behaviour among university students. Based on survey data from 300 respondents and logistic regression analysis, the results confirm that employment, higher allowances, and consistent budgeting practices positively influence saving. A more specific finding emerges regarding financial literacy: conditional on the controls used in our analysis, financial literacy is negatively associated with the probability of reporting savings. This association, which is specific to this student sample and the Malaysian setting, can be understood through two complementary theoretical lenses. From a life-cycle perspective, students in this cohort may rationally anticipate higher future earnings and allocate current resources towards consumption or human capital investment rather than saving. From a behavioural perspective, present bias, hyperbolic discounting, and overconfidence may override financial knowledge, creating a knowledge-action gap. The implication is that financial literacy alone is insufficient to promote saving among students, and interventions should address both economic constraints and behavioural frictions specific to this demographic.
We propose a new approach in which unique type of time-frequency series have been constructed and then relative cross-entropy is applied for identification of commodities which are the source of comovement, and spillover, in equity and commodity markets, named as TFS relative cross-entropy approach. In fact, we combined time series and frequency series into such time-frequency series which have properties of both, a novel type of time-frequency representation. This approach measures the transmission of information content from one market to another and capable to track information flow and risk transmission. Moreover, this study is essential for understanding evolving nature of financial system and potential sources of systemic risk by how systemic risk propagates between equity and commodity markets in the presence of information transmission. We have proved that time frequency series (TFS) is more efficient, offering improved estimation and prediction due to lower amount of entropy in our TFS than in time series. In short-term and long-term, S&P 500, crude oil, heating oil, sugar and cotton were the transmitter of spillover while natural gas, wheat, corn, coffee and cocoa were the receiver of spillover. For robustness, sliding windows and Monte Carlo simulations, results were remained similar approximately. The results show that stock market majorly and energy market partially trigger the commodity markets. The regulators and policymakers can understand dynamics and patterns of influencing commodities which can work as warning signal to upcoming spillover in the markets and they can make strategies to stabilize influencing commodities to minimize risk.
This paper aims to clarify the mechanism through which financial literacy converts into economic resilience during systemic crises, particularly in environments with varying levels of institutional support. Exploiting the pandemic as a quasi-natural experiment and utilizing panel data from the China Household Finance Survey (2015-2021), we identify the causal effect of financial literacy on wealth preservation through difference-in-differences and triple-difference models. Our findings reveal that while the pandemic hindered wealth accumulation, financial literacy provided a critical shield, significantly mitigating wealth losses. Two distinct channels for this protective effect are evidenced: financial literacy facilitates the adoption of digital financial tools and encourages portfolio diversification, thereby reducing household financial vulnerability. Crucially, heterogeneity analysis uncovers a significant substitution effect: the wealth-protective role of financial literacy is most potent in regions with underdeveloped financial infrastructure. In these resource-constrained environments, financial literacy acts as a cognitive surrogate for physical banking access, effectively offsetting institutional voids during systemic uncertainty. By characterizing financial literacy as a compensatory mechanism and a strategic substitute for physical infrastructure, this study provides forward-looking insights into how intangible human capital fosters household resilience. These findings underscore the need for targeted financial education as a strategic tool for economic stability, particularly for vulnerable groups in remote areas, to prevent the financial literacy gap from evolving into permanent economic inequality.
Health insurance plays a vital role in protecting low-income households from the financial consequences of health risks. The true potential of microcredit, a tool for economic empowerment, may be enhanced if combined with health insurance. This study assesses the effect of health insurance on rural micro-borrowers’ welfare in Ghana. By using an endogenous treatment effect model and an endogenous switching regression to address insurance selection biases, we examine the effect of public health insurance on micro-borrowers’ non-medical expenditures. Our findings highlight that health insurance substantially increases micro-borrowers’ non-food consumption expenditures and does not affect food expenditures. Without health insurance, the non-food expenditure would absorb shocks to maintain stable levels of food consumption. The heterogeneity analysis shows that enrollment in health insurance has a significant effect on non-food expenditures only among non-poor micro-borrowers. Being closer to the subsistence level of consumption, uninsured poor households tend to smooth their consumption by resorting to costly coping mechanisms. The welfare gains for poor micro-borrowers associated with health insurance cannot be fully captured by measures of food and non-food expenditures alone.
The spatial dynamics of green finance (GF) is crucial to understanding the effective path of urban decarbonization. This study explores the “central bias” caused by China’s Green Finance Reform and Innovation Pilot Zone (GFRIPZ) in terms of carbon emission reduction, focusing on the differences between urban centers and surrounding areas. By analyzing the panel data of 278 cities from 2011 to 2022 and using the difference-in-differences (DID), we have provided strong causal evidence that the implementation of GFRIPZ has significantly reduced carbon emissions, and the impact is most significant in urban central areas. Three main conclusions were drawn from this study: (1) The spatial imbalance caused by GFRIPZ to reduce carbon emissions supports the existence of central bias; (2) These effects are most pronounced in cities in the central and eastern regions, small cities, and non-resource-based cities; (3) Mechanism analysis shows that the improvement of energy utilization efficiency, green technological innovation and governmental ecological concern to ecological issues are the main driving factors. Our findings highlight the policy relevance of spatially differentiated carbon reduction and provide new empirical evidence for improving green finance initiatives to achieve sustainable urban development.
This paper examines how monetary policy affects the alignment between asset and debt maturities at the firm level, using a panel dataset of 544 listed non-financial firms in Vietnam from 2008 to 2024. The results show that monetary tightening significantly increases corporate maturity mismatch. This effect remains robust under various specifications, using alternative measures, and after controlling for endogeneity. Mechanism analyses reveal that the effect operates through reduced debt maturity, increased borrowing costs, and heightened financing constraints. Furthermore, the impact of monetary policy on corporate maturity mismatch is more pronounced among firms with weaker financial conditions (i.e., those with high leverage, heavy reliance on bank debt, and in financial distress), while firms with strong internal financing capacity or higher growth opportunities are more resilient. Notably, capital-intensive firms also experience greater mismatch under monetary contraction.
This study investigates whether intragroup risk exposure arising from internal capital market activities leads to capital replenishment via external financing activities. An analysis of a sample of U.S. intragroup non-life insurers shows that the increased intragroup risk exposure via intragroup reinsurance transactions from affiliated ceding firms motivates assuming firms to issue new capital externally and purchase reinsurance from non-affiliated reinsurers during the insurance crisis caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. These results suggest that intragroup reinsurance assuming firms manage to seek capacity replenishment via external financing activities despite the increased cost of capital and the impairment of overall (re)insurance industry’s capacity. This study reveals the interplay between intragroup risk exposure arising from internal capital market activities and external financing, while also elucidating capital management practices.
Drawing on institutional investors’ diversified holdings within industries, this study examines how common owners affect corporate tax avoidance from the perspective of firms’ tax decisions. We find that, motivated by the objective of maximizing portfolio value, common ownership has a significantly positive effect on corporate tax avoidance. Using China’s Golden Tax Phase III Project as a quasi-natural experiment, we validate the mechanism through which “hidden tax-avoidance information circulates within connected networks,” providing empirical evidence that common ownership transmits tax-planning knowledge. We further find that the positive effect of common ownership on corporate tax avoidance is more pronounced when tax-planning knowledge is more transferable, when focal firms have a stronger ability to understand such knowledge, and when focal firms have stronger economic incentives to use it. In addition, the effect of common ownership on tax avoidance among portfolio firms helps common owners achieve portfolio-value maximization and provides financial support for managerial empire building.
This study exploits the staggered rollout of municipal public data openness platforms across Chinese cities to examine how public data openness affects firm employment. Empirical analysis demonstrates that public data openness is associated with higher firm employment, and the effect remains robust across a range of specification checks. Mechanism analysis suggests that public data openness promotes firm employment by reducing information asymmetry and thereby improving firms’ operating conditions, as reflected in firm expansion and higher total factor productivity. Heterogeneity analyses show that the employment effect is more pronounced among financially constrained firms, labor-intensive firms, firms in more competitive industries, and firms with stronger data-use capabilities. Furthermore, we find that public data openness reduces job destruction at the extensive margin while enhancing employment opportunities for less-educated and lower-skilled workers at the intensive margin. Overall, the findings provide empirical evidence for the effective allocation of data resources by local governments in the digital economy and offer policy insights for broadening labor market inclusiveness and promoting firm employment.
Identifying the influencing factors of household financial vulnerability is of great practical significance for improving household financial resilience and enhancing people’s welfare. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this paper empirically tests the impact of non-cognitive ability on Chinese household financial vulnerability and its underlying mechanisms. The research indicates that non-cognitive ability significantly reduces household financial vulnerability. Non-cognitive ability mitigates household financial vulnerability through pathways such as improving health conditions, elevating financial literacy levels, strengthening the sense of social trust, and promoting participation in the digital economy. Therefore, the authorities should pay more attention to the personality traits of citizens, strengthen financial education and the construction of digital infrastructure, and provide targeted assistance to financially distressed households.
Carbon accounting information disclosure enables firms to communicate information about their production and operating activities to the capital market more effectively, thereby mitigating the adverse role of information dissymmetry on corporate ambidextrous innovation. Accordingly, the paper empirically tests the influence of carbon accounting information disclosure on corporate ambidextrous innovation, employing the sample data of all listed companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share markets (2014–2023). The test outcomes demonstrate that carbon accounting information disclosure is capable of significantly promoting exploratory innovation while significantly inhibiting exploitative innovation; this conclusion stays robust after relevant endogeneity and robustness tests. The mechanism analysis reveals that financing constraints serve as a significant mediator in the correlation between carbon accounting information disclosure and corporate ambidextrous innovation. An analysis of the differences in the effects and mechanisms of carbon accounting information disclosures and ESG information disclosures indicates that there are significant differences in the impact of carbon accounting information disclosures and ESG information disclosures on firms’ ambidextrous innovation, as well as in their underlying mechanisms. Further analysis indicates that, based on heterogeneity tests, the promotional effect of carbon accounting information disclosure on exploratory innovation is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises, while its inhibitory effect on exploitative innovation is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises; furthermore, the impact of carbon accounting information disclosure on both exploratory and exploitative innovation is more pronounced in the eastern region, as well as during the growth and decline phases of a firm; Moderation effect tests revealed that environmental uncertainty amplifies the impact of carbon accounting information disclosure on firms’ ambidextrous innovation, while marketization and analyst attention mitigate this effect; an analysis of economic consequences indicates that carbon accounting information disclosure not only promotes exploratory innovation and inhibits exploitative innovation but ultimately fosters high-quality development in firms. This paper not only diversifies research on carbon accounting information disclosure but also provides scientific empirical evidence and decision-making references for promoting corporate ambidextrous innovation.
We use a large language model to build a multi-dimensional index of digitization of payments, so-called the LLM-based Digitization of Payments Index (LDPI). This index allows for quantifying the changes in the use of digital payment instruments (card, contactless, mobile, and others) in France. We find that the LDPI provides lessons relative to readily available quantitative statistics on digitization of payments, collected by institutions such as the European Central Bank (ECB). Indeed, the LDPI captures the evolving complexity, sentiment, and policy expectations inherent in the digitization process, which univariate indicators miss. We contribute to identifying and assessing economic mechanisms behind the use of digital payment by examining the effects of digitization on macroeconomic indicators. Incorporating the LDPI in the set of explanatory variables of quantity theory-based model through an Error Correction framework improves the explanatory power of the model. This result means that the LDPI contains information on the relationship between payment digitization and cash demand.
This paper employs data from the Peking University Digital Financial Inclusion Index of China and the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study to investigate how digital finance influences clean cooking energy adoption among middle- and older-aged rural households. To address potential endogeneity concerns, we employ two instrumental variables, including spherical distance to Hangzhou and the implementation of the “Broadband China” pilot. The results indicate that digital finance significantly promotes the adoption of clean cooking energy. Heterogeneity analyses indicate that the positive effect is more pronounced among households coresiding with adult children, households headed by individuals younger than 70, and households located in eastern China. Mechanism analyses further suggest that digital finance encourages clean cooking energy adoption by improving payment convenience and increasing financial transfers from adult children. These findings underscore the role of digital finance in promoting household-level energy transition and provide new evidence on the socioeconomic consequences of digital finance development.
In this paper, we analyze the effectiveness and selection of China’s macroprudential and capital controls policies in managing international capital flows and mitigating other adverse impacts triggered by external shocks using a two-country DSGE model. Considering a contractionary USA monetary policy shock widens interest rate spreads and triggers international capital outflows from China, we find that macroprudential policy is valid in the short run for its “hedge effect”. It attracts inflows of incremental capital to hedge the pressure of existing capital outflows. While in the long run, the effectiveness of macroprudential policy becomes ambiguous and alternative policies can be actively implemented. Capital controls policy is a powerful tool both in the short run and long run for its direct “mitigating effect”. It raises the costs of international capital outflows which eases the pressure of existing capital outflows directly. We conclude that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach. Priority can be given to the non-distortionary macroprudential policy while capital controls policy can be the last resort tool but should be temporary.
