China has emerged as the world's largest bilateral creditor to developing countries, yet its effects on sovereign debt outcomes remain contested. Competing theoretical perspectives predict opposing effects: Chinese lending may increase debt vulnerability through opacity, moral hazard, and unsustainable obligations, or reduce it by providing critical financing to countries excluded from traditional capital markets. This study assesses the relationship between Chinese lending and sovereign debt distress using panel data on 152 developing countries from 2000 to 2022. Employing a within-between Mundlak decomposition and an instrumental variable strategy, we find little evidence that Chinese lending increases debt distress within countries over time. China's loans may actually decrease the risk of debt crises. We find no consistent evidence that Chinese lending increases debt restructuring or IMF funds access. We also find no evidence that Chinese loans increase overall debt burdens, affect countries' ability to service obligations, or lead to riskier fiscal behavior. Our findings suggest that rather than focusing on blame attribution, research should prioritize developing institutional mechanisms to coordinate creditors in managing debt distress in an increasingly fragmented global financial landscape.
We examine how state ownership and CEO financial incentives jointly condition the market valuation of acquisition-related leverage adjustments in 2251 completed M&A deals by Chinese A-share listed acquirers (2013-2023). Acquirers draw on spare financing capacity at deal completion, with larger leverage increases among underleveraged firms. In the pooled sample, leverage changes are not systematically associated with announcement returns. Within state-owned enterprises (SOEs), however, this association is more negative at higher CEO financial incentive levels-a pattern concentrated in cash compensation and consistent with incentive-contingent discounting under soft budget constraints-and is sharpest in the symmetric window around the 2015 SOE pay-cap reform.
ABSTRACT Municipal government relocation is a prominent spatial governance strategy in China. Using panel data from 282 prefecture‐level cities between 2000 and 2016, this study employs a multi‐period difference‐in‐differences design to examine its fiscal effects. Relocation significantly increases budgetary revenue only in cities with weaker fiscal capacity, while consistently raising land transfer revenue. Mechanism analyses suggest that relocation promotes firm entry and tertiary‐sector development, with higher land values, rather than expanded land supply, driving land‐related fiscal gains. The effects vary with economic development, industrial structure, urbanization, post‐relocation dynamics, and local leadership. These findings reveal how administrative spatial restructuring shapes local development.
ABSTRACT This article studies fiscal convergence in the European Union (EU) from 1995 to 2024 using the sequential panel selection method. We use an improved econometric method to analyze the sequence of convergence and the factors influencing convergence differences. The conclusions provide strong evidence that 21 of 27 countries have achieved fiscal convergence, whereas six countries, including Slovakia, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Slovenia, and Bulgaria, present nonconvergence characteristics. It also identifies that the degree of trade openness and economic growth affect the speed of fiscal convergence positively. The results have reference value for the study of the coordinated development of EU fiscal integration.
ABSTRACT This study examines how performance measurement systems (PMSs) mediate political‐economic tensions in Chinese state‐owned enterprises (SOEs), where state directives and market mechanisms coexist. Drawing on a longitudinal case study of a Chinese central SOE following the introduction of Economic Value Added (EVA), we find that its PMS enabled managers to negotiate competing growth and profitability objectives through recurring cycles of target‐setting, monitoring, and review across organizational levels, with feedback supporting continual adjustment. We contribute to political economy research on SOE governance by showing how the PMS rendered state‐market tensions visible and structured the negotiation and recursive adjustment of competing demands.
