Promoting innovation in pharmaceutical manufacturing is crucial for national health. This study investigates the impact of industry regulations on firm innovation by analyzing China's national centralized drug procurement (NCDP) policy. The findings indicate that the regulatory reform has effectively stimulated innovation among pharmaceutical enterprises, particularly non-state-owned ones, which lack political connections, are relatively small in scale, and operate in challenging market environments. The reform exerts its influence by changing product market competition patterns, including altering competition strategies, and intensifying competitive pressures. This study provides empirical evidence supporting the efficacy of industry regulations and offers insights for fostering innovation and development in pharmaceutical enterprises through the lens of market competition.

In societies with pronounced gender inequality, attractive women are often perceived as less competent leaders or confined to ornamental roles. Drawing on social role theory, institutional theory, and Upper Echelons theory, and integrating insights from research on gender inequality, beauty effects, and corporate philanthropy, we argue that attractive female CEOs strategically engage in philanthropy to counteract gender-based stereotypes, using such actions to signal compassion and social responsibility-qualities consistent with societal expectations of effective leadership. We further propose that the relationship between female CEO attractiveness and corporate philanthropy is moderated by contextual factors. Specifically, weaker gender stereotypes and more competitive markets that reward managerial talent should reduce the need for such compensatory behavior. Using data on Chinese firms, we examine the link between the physical attractiveness of female CEOs and corporate donations. The results show that attractive female CEOs engage more actively in philanthropy, contributing larger donations than their less attractive peers, particularly in regions with stronger gender stereotypes and less market-oriented economies.

Fund cliques (i.e., mutual funds holding the same stocks) are a common feature of global financial markets, raising the question: How do fund cliques shape firms’ information environment? Do they improve information efficiency or amplify noise trading? Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2004 to 2020, we explore the impact of fund cliques on firms’ information environment (measured by stock price synchronicity). Research has found that the increase in the degree of fund clique significantly reduces stock price synchronicity. Our evidence supports the noise trading channel, showing that fund cliques amplify noise trading by reducing the marginal returns of private information acquisition or distorting price signals. Using the unique characteristics of the Chinese market, our paper enriches research on stock price synchronicity and institutional investor behavior, and provides references for emerging capital markets to optimize institutional investor supervision and improve firms’ information environment.

The paper studies the impact of university presidential turnover on the university's performance using the data from 111 Double First-Class universities in China during the timeframe 2008-2017. Our findings indicate that presidential turnover engenders uncertainty and impedes university research prowess. However, when the succeeding president is a fellow townsman with officials of the Ministry of Education, the inhibitory impact is mitigated. When official turnover precipitates political uncertainty, the risks engendered by the presidential turnover are exacerbated. Further analysis reveals an inverted U-shaped relationship between presidential tenure and performance, with optimal tenures of approximately 6.5 years for funding and 10.5 years for publications. The findings can assist universities in minimizing uncertainty caused by presidential turnover.

We use satellite night light data to estimate the extent of gross domestic product (GDP) manipulation in China and investigate the impact of such manipulation on local firms. Firms located in provinces with higher levels of GDP manipulation experience a higher cost of equity, lower investment efficiency, and weaker profit growth. Using a difference-in-difference test, we show that the cost of equity decreases and firm performance improves following unexpected turnovers of top government officials, which significantly reduces GDP manipulation. Additionally, our findings suggest that local firms may collude with government officials in costly data manipulation. We show that firms in provinces with higher levels of GDP manipulation receive more government subsidies, and that firms with lower pay-performance sensitivity (PPS) are more likely to collude.

This study investigates how climate-driven temperature anomalies affect corporate investment in China, extending research on climate impacts in corporate finance. Prior studies show high temperatures negatively impact economic output and firm performance in emerging economies, yet corporate investment responses remain underexplored. Using data from Chinese publicly listed firms from 2001 to 2019, we employ multivariate regression to examine the effects of temperature anomalies on investment. Our findings reveal that a 1 degrees C increase in temperature anomalies reduces corporate investment by 9.25 %, a result consistent across models, primarily driven by heightened uncertainty and rising production and financing costs. Moreover, accounting for geographic and economic factors, we find limited evidence of effective adaptation strategies among Chinese firms. These findings enhance understanding of climate-related economic vulnerabilities at the firm level and underscore the urgency of adaptive corporate strategies in emerging markets.

We investigate the tools that managers use to conceal big baths in times of crisis. Our study is based on 7623 firm-year observations of A-share listed companies in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. The empirical evidence suggests that during the COVID-19 pandemic, managers are more likely to take advantage of the crisis to engage in big baths. Specifically, managers engaging in big baths tend to convey a more negative tone regarding the pandemic and utilize the pandemic for self-serving attribution in financial reports. Moreover, managers have a heightened motivation to use COVID-19 disclosures to conceal big baths driven by stronger opportunistic intent, particularly those occurring in the fourth quarter, leading to negative earnings surprises, or those involving non-goodwill asset accounts. The correlation between big baths and a negative pandemic tone is less pronounced for firms with greater transparency in disclosure, higher analyst attention, CEO duality, and higher management ownership. Furthermore, we find that using the COVID-19 pandemic as a cover can help mitigate the stock price crash risks associated with big baths. The findings draw stakeholder attention to the opportunistic nature of earnings manipulation and discretionary disclosures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We investigate the relationship between corporate governance characteristics and the change of penalized audit firms based on financing, reputation, and client relationship perspectives. Based on a sample of client companies of penalized audit firms in China between 2008 and 2023, we find that companies with financing incentives and good reputations tend to change penalized audit firms, while companies with close "audit firm-client" relationships tend to maintain cooperation. The above conclusion still stands after a series of endogeneity and robustness tests. Heterogeneity tests indicate that the intensity of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC)'s penalties, the company's level of real earnings management, and the nature of property rights all affect the company's decision to change the penalized audit firm. Further research finds that the company's continued cooperation with the penalized audit firm can harm its accounting information quality and accounting conservatism. The findings of our study enrich the existing research on the factors influencing the change of penalized audit firms in emerging markets.

China's rapid urbanization has intensified urban employment pressure. The National Civilized City (NCC) policy is a significant initiative in China aimed at promoting high-quality urban development. We utilize the NCC policy as a quasi-natural experiment and employ the staggered difference-in-difference method to empirically analyze the impact of urban civilization development on full employment and human capital level. The empirical results demonstrate that NCC policy significantly promotes urban entrepreneurship and employment creation, boosts labor demand of local enterprises, and enhances the human capital level. The positive effect on employment is significant in both talent-intensive and low- and medium-skilled intensive fields. In addition, heterogeneity tests show that this positive effect is more pronounced in low-tier cities and previously polluted cities. Finally, the mechanism analysis indicates that the NCC policy can enhance employment creation through investment promotion at the city level and by expanding production scale at the firm level. The NCC policy's impact on human capital level is supported by technological advancement and innovation emphasis mechanisms from the demand side, as well as talent agglomeration mechanism from the supply side. This study provides policy recommendations for local governments to leverage the achievements of civilized cities in promoting employment.

Minority shareholder protection is especially important in countries with weak institutions. Prior studies indicate that social media facilitates minority shareholder activism by connecting otherwise isolated individual shareholders and increasing their bargaining power against the controlling shareholders. Whereas prior studies focus on the ex-post monitoring role of social media in corporate governance, we investigate whether and how minority shareholder social media engagement could deter insiders' entrenchment incentives in an ex-ante fashion. Specifically, using high merger premiums and private placement financing as proxies for activities that reflect insider entrenchment incentives in M&As, we find that greater social media engagement lowers M&A premiums and the likelihood of using private placement to benefit the controlling shareholders. This result holds after we control for the governance role of conventional media or analyst coverage, and institutional investors. Our mechanism analysis reveals that the effectiveness of social media in curbing entrenchment incentives in M&A is conditional on the perceived capital market consequences and the perceived likelihood of proposal vetoes. Further analysis shows that minority shareholder activism plays a greater role in curbing entrenchment in M&As when the minority shareholder sentiment expressed on social media is more negative and is more M&A-specific, as well as when social media facilitates higher quality discussions following an exogenous regulatory shock. We also find that minority shareholder activism is associated with better M&A performance. Our study highlights the ex-ante governance role of minority shareholder activism in weak institutions and informs regulators on the critical need to provide a platform for minority shareholders to effectively voice their concerns.

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This study investigates the impact of turnover among local government officials on the risk-taking of local commercial banks in China. Our findings reveal a positive relationship between official turnover and risk-taking in banks. The observed effect is mainly due to a deterioration in credit allocation and heightened competition among banks. Heterogeneous analysis indicates that the impact is more significant in non-election years, in years of enhanced anti-corruption efforts, in regions with poor credit environments, and among smaller banks or banks without political connections. Additionally, compared to normal and local turnover, the positive impact of local official turnover on banks' risk-taking is more pronounced for abnormal and non-local turnovers. These insights deepen our understanding of the economic consequences of official turnover on commercial banks and offer valuable perspectives for banks' risk management strategies.

In this article, we investigate the influence of local official turnover on litigation efficiency using manually collected data from listed companies in China from 1995 to 2013. Our findings indicate that official turnover leads to a decrease in litigation efficiency, with a 16.3% increase in the duration of litigation cases. This effect is more pronounced when newly appointed officials are working in different locations. It is more significant when the involved enterprise is a private entity, suggesting that political cycles contribute to the selective enforcement of private enterprises. Further analysis reveals that the adverse impact of official turnover on litigation efficiency is short-lived. The conclusions contribute to the existing literature on official turnover and litigation efficiency and hold potential implications for judicial independence reforms.

This study examines the ways in which companies react to the manipulation of macroeconomic data, from the perspective of investment efficiency. Our findings reveal a notable decrease in the investment efficiency of companies located in areas where macroeconomic data manipulation is more prevalent. This effect is significantly stronger for companies in regions characterized by increased government intervention, reduced transparency of government information, and heightened economic policy uncertainty. Moreover, tampering with macroeconomic data results in the misallocation of bank loans, ultimately reducing firms' investment efficiency. Our research indicates that macroeconomic data manipulation can lead to biased macroeconomic information and diminished resource allocation efficiency.

This paper examines the effects of share pledging by controlling shareholders on tunneling. Using a sample of Chinese listed companies from 2004 to 2018, we find that share-pledging firms engage in more tunneling than non-share-pledging firms do. Our results are robust to alternative measures of tunneling, alternative estimation methods, and endogeneity checks using a difference-in-differences analysis. Moreover, we find that the positive association between share pledging and tunneling is more pronounced when firms' controlling shareholders have a stronger incentive to tunnel (e.g., firms with a greater wedge between cash flow rights and control rights) and when monitoring mechanisms are weak (e.g., firms with fewer analysts following or lower institutional holdings).

People’s livelihood serves as the primary impetus driving all social activities. Faced with intense regional competition and stringent assessment, regional governments often resort to manipulating GDP figures. This study investigates the repercussions of such economic distortion on residents’ welfare. Our findings reveal a significant negative relationship between regional GDP manipulation and investment in livelihood improvements. This correlation is particularly pronounced during the initial phase of officials’ tenure and diminishes when officials serve in their hometowns. Moreover, we observe that the reduction in livelihood investment is exacerbated during periods of economic downturn. These conclusions contribute to the existing literature on regional GDP manipulation and livelihood investment, shedding light on the potential implications for residents’ welfare.

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如何切实贯彻落实"两个毫不动摇"关系到中国的高质量发展.本文以国有企业纾困民营企业为例,研究发现:当民营企业陷入困境时,来自国有企业的纾困能缓解民营企业的危机,但是国有企业在纾困中如果不重视公司治理,同时权衡经济收益,最终长期的纾困效果会让国有企业利益受损.本文的发现对于政府和国资方有效制定和实施混改政策,促进民企健康发展具有借鉴意义.

新三板是我国多层次资本市场的重要组成部分,其对提高挂牌及上市企业质量能否真正发挥作用值得关注和研究.本文以 2014-2021 年期间在A股首次公开募股的上市公司为研究样本,把有新三板挂牌经历的公司作为"预科班"企业,比较研究"预科班"企业与非"预科班"企业在首次公开募股上市后的表现差异.实证结果表明:第一,"预科班"企业上市首日公开募股溢价显著高于非"预科班"企业,平均差距达 43 个百分点;第二,"预科班"企业上市一年后的业绩优于非"预科班"企业,非"预科班"企业在公开募股上市后业绩整体出现下滑,但"预科班"企业业绩则相对保持稳定;第三,"预科班"企业上市后财务稳健性要强于非"预科班"企业.上述研究结果证实了在新三板挂牌的"预科班"经历能够提高上市公司的质量.为此,应进一步发挥好新三板作为企业上市"预科班"的功能,加强新三板市场的机制建设,畅通新三板与主板之间的转板通道.

北交所的设立是中国多层次资本市场建设的关键一步,自2021年成立以来,北交所取得了不少的成绩,但是也存在着不少问题.本文通过梳理北交所发展现状,从市场端、生态端、供给端、制度端和技术端对北交所运行的问题进行了分析,同时也从市场端、制度端和服务端对北交所问题存在的原因进行了剖析,最后为北交所的进一步发展提出了相应的政策建议.