This study examined the environmental consequences of administrative decentralization by focusing on China's town power expansion reform as a quasi-natural experiment. Using firm-level panel data for Zhejiang province from 2001 to 2013, it employed a difference-in-differences approach to assess the causal impact of decentralization at the town level on firm pollution emissions. The results indicated that this form of decentralization led to a significant 19.1 percent increase in firm-level pollution, primarily driven by intensified economic competition and tax competition, expanded firms' output, and declined energy efficiency. These findings highlight the complex relationship between administrative decentralization and environmental governance, underscoring the potential unintended consequences of granting more autonomy to lower-level governments. This study thereby contributes to the debate on the relationship between decentralization and pollution.

Strengthening the linkage between network and capital market supervision is an important focus of our government's strategy to promote the integration of network and real economies. From the perspective of firm tax aggressiveness strategic choice, this paper examines the important impacts of network attention on firm tax aggressiveness. The results show that with the enhance of network attention, firm tax aggressiveness planning has been effectively restrained, and this effect is more obvious for private firms, small-scale firms and firms with low attention. The mechanism tests reveal that the governance effect of network attention mainly comes from the intervention of administrative departments, which increases the violation costs, while the reputation and real earnings management mechanisms are not enough to explain the increase of their effective tax rate. Further exploration shows that the inhibition of network supervision on firm tax aggressiveness mainly occurred in the samples with inadequate internal controls, suggesting a certain alternative role between internal and external corporate governance. This paper provides some enlightenment for the implementation of external firm governance and the construction of tax collection and management governance system in China.

We investigate how the weakening of implicit government guarantees (IGGs) alters firms’ incentives to enhance financial reporting credibility in response to bondholders’ heightened information needs. Exploiting China’s first state-owned-enterprise default in 2015 as an exogenous shock, we examine whether historically high-IGG firms respond by upgrading to higher-quality auditors to signal transparency and restore market trust. Using Chinese listed bond issuers from 2010 to 2020, we find that high-IGG firms are significantly more likely to switch to Big 10 auditors following the IGG shock. This strategic shift is more pronounced when signaling benefits are higher (i.e., among firms that rely heavily on bond financing) and when signaling costs are lower (i.e., among firms with shorter auditor tenures). Consistent with signaling costs exceeding benefits, distressed firms engage in going-concern opinion shopping rather than signaling. Moreover, high-IGG firms that upgrade their auditors benefit from improvements in credit ratings and reductions in bond yield spreads. These firms also exhibit improved accounting quality, which validates the effectiveness of auditor upgrading as a credible governance signal. Overall, our evidence indicates that the weakening of IGGs motivates bond issuers to assume greater responsibility for credibility of their financial reporting, reinforcing accountability and trust in public debt markets.

Studies grounded in the theory of vocational personality suggest that accountants exhibit a conventional personality type in virtue of which they tend to be relatively uncreative. The well-observed phenomenon whereby corporations appoint CEOs with accounting backgrounds raises the question of how effectively accountant CEOs lead technological innovation. Using a large dataset of patents issued to U.S. firms from 2001 through 2018, we find that firms with accountant CEOs are associated with lower innovation output and a weaker propensity to pursue explorative innovations but greater efficiency in generating innovation output per unit of resource input. We also show that industry growth mitigates the negative effects of accountant CEOs on exploration and innovation while enhancing their capacity to promote innovation efficiency. Our findings delineate the trade-offs associated with accountant CEO appointments and highlight a significant yet underexplored aspect of a CEO's personal background—underlying vocational personality traits—as determinants that influence innovation pathways and strategic outcomes.

The dual-credit policy (DCP) is anticipated to encourage new-energy vehicle (NEV) enterprises to perform technology R&D by distributing higher NEV-credits to NEVs with superior technical performance. However, use of information disparities between the government and enterprises to manipulate NEV output may result in unforeseen policy outcomes. The objective of this study is to explore the effectiveness of the DCP on promoting NEV enterprises' engagement in technology R&D. Specifically, considering that enterprise's technology R & D behavior is affected by technology spillover effect in the enterprise-level network, this paper investigates the impact of various DCP-related parameters on the diffusion of NEV technology R & D behavior by developing a dynamic agent-based model under complex network. The results show that: (1) increasing the credit limit for each NEV can encourage the spread of technology R & D, whereas the marginal effectiveness declines. (2) The increment of technical performance coefficient reduces the spread of technology R & D, while it exhibit no substantial effect on the overall ratio of enterprises with manipulation behavior. (3) High credit transaction prices not only have no significant impact towards spread of R & D behavior, but there emerges more NEV enterprises with manipulation behavior. (4) The improvement of regulatory is conducive to suppressing the manipulation behavior.

This paper builds a dynamic liquidity management model to examine the interdependent consumption-portfolio choices and debt financing problems when a risk-averse entrepreneur has leverage commitment friction. First, we find that low risk aversion leads to active debt buybacks, providing a novel rationale for the prevalent callable feature through the risk management channel. Second, high risk aversion generates a leverage ratchet effect. The distressed entrepreneur reduces consumption but takes on more risk to gamble for resurrection. To diversify business risk, the borrower accelerates the issuance of risky debt. Finally, we predict that the debt spiral effect (leverage mean reversion) is more likely to occur when the borrower is less (more) risk-averse, debt maturity is longer (shorter), or idiosyncratic risk is smaller (larger).

Air pollution poses significant threats to human health and social welfare, severely impeding sustainable urban development. The low-carbon city pilot (LCCP) policy, designed to control greenhouse gas emissions, may also affect PM2.5. We empirically assess the effect of LCCP policy on PM2.5 by deploying a difference-in-differences strategy. Our findings indicate that, on average, LCCP policy reduces PM2.5 by 2.27 % in pilot cities compared to non-pilot cities. These results are confirmed through robustness tests including instrumental variable analysis, homogeneous treatment effects, Bacon decomposition, and heterogeneity robust estimation. The haze-reducing impact of LCCP policy is particularly pronounced in eastern regions, larger cities, and cities with a high level of information. Mechanisms analysis show that the policy works by enhancing economic development and government support (macro level), increasing industrial scale and competitiveness (meso level), and improving green technology innovation and energy efficiency (micro level). Additionally, LCCP policy exhibits border effect, where its haze reduction effect intensifies with the distance from each pilot city to its provincial border. The effective range of the spillover effect of LCCP policy is within 350 km.

This study examines whether and how voluntary news disclosure made by private firms affects investment sensitivities of public peer firms. Analyzing data from U.S. public firms from 1996 to 2018, we discover that public firms' investment sensitivities intensify in industries with active private firm disclosures; a one standard deviation increase in private firm news disclosure raises public firms' investment sensitivities by 14.5-17.6 percent. To mitigate endogeneity, we employ instrumental-variable methods, leveraging the staggered implementation of prudent investor rules and enforceability of noncompete agreements. Our results show that these effects are magnified in industries marked by the higher expected industry return volatility and less local newspaper coverage. We find that news from private firms significantly enhances public firms' investment sensitivities, regardless of its sentiment. This research highlights the crucial role of private firm disclosures in influencing public firms' investment decisions, enhancing our understanding of information spillovers in corporate disclosure.

New quality productivity (NQP) has the possibility to enhance carbon emission performance which will fortify the groundwork for long-term economic expansion even further. The research examines the panel data of 30 provinces spanning the years 2012 to 2022 for an evaluation framework for NQP and carbon emission performance at the provincial level. Employing fixed effect models, mediation effect analysis, and spatial econometrics, the study explores the effect of NQP on carbon emission performance, its mediating mechanisms, and the spatial spillover effects. The findings indicate that (1) NQP significantly lowers carbon emissions for every unit of GDP and enhances carbon emission performance, and the result holds up when the instrumental variable methods are used. (2) The NQP had a significant contribution to improving carbon emission performance via advancements in green innovation. (3) The NQP does more than directly enhance the regional carbon emission performance; in contrast, it additionally positively influences the carbon emission performance level of the adjacent regions by the spatial spillover effect. (4) The impact of NQP on carbon emission performance is particularly pronounced in eastern and innovative regions. On this basis, we should vigorously develop the NQP, strengthen cross-regional policy coordination, and promote green and sustainable development.

Environmental information disclosure plays a critical role in advancing China's environmental protection initiatives and achieving its “dual carbon” targets. This study investigates the spillover effects of environmental information disclosure between upstream and downstream firms, utilizing a sample of Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2023. This analysis takes place within the context of China's lack of mandatory environmental disclosure policies. The empirical findings indicate that customers with higher levels of environmental information disclosure encourage suppliers to improve their disclosure practices, thus suggesting the presence of spillover effects within the supply chain. The mechanism analysis further reveals that, in the absence of mandatory disclosure of value chain emissions, customer firms' environmental information disclosure may unintentionally incentivize suppliers to engage in greenwashing behaviors, such as falsifying disclosure reports, to artificially inflate their environmental information disclosure levels. Further analysis indicates that the improvement of environmental information disclosure level of supplier enterprises under the influence of downstream customer enterprises is more pronounced for suppliers that are located in eastern cities or facing intense industry competition and for areas that are with strong environmental regulation and strong bank competition. This study contributes to the literature on supply chain spillover effects and environmental information disclosure, underscores the significance of green supply chain management, and provides valuable insights for policy development.

Teachers are often responsible for both teaching and administration in primary and secondary schools, but the effects on student achievements have not received enough attention. This paper examines how teachers’ responsibilities for administrative tasks affect student achievements based on a randomly assigned classes quasi-experiment. The results find that part-time administrative positions lower student achievements by about 0.83 standard deviations, and these effects are more pronounced for higher level administrative positions. Moreover, we find that these effects may be seen mainly in the mathematical subjects, and male and local students are more sensitive to them. The main reason is that part-time administrative positions reduce teachers’ regular teaching activities and time to communicate with students. This paper not only contributes to the literature on teacher characteristics and student performance, but also provides insights into relevant teacher administration policies.

With the increasingly serious environmental pollution problem, how to effectively curb environmental pollution and reduce corporate emissions has become an important issue that urgently needs to be addressed. A large number of studies evaluating environmental protection policies have overlooked the additional social costs incurred during the environmental governance. Therefore, we systematically analyze the impact of environmental regulation on real estate prices, taking the pilot policy of Sulfur Dioxide Emissions Trading (SDET) in China as an opportunity. The results show that the SDET has led to a significant increase in house prices in the pilot cities, and the magnitude of the increase expands with the increase in the number of participating enterprises and the turnover of emissions trading. The mechanistic tests show that the emissions trading pilot policy has produced a population agglomeration effect while achieving environmental benefits, improved residents' willingness to pay for local housing, and promoted house prices by increasing housing demand. The research conclusions of this paper provide a decisionmaking reference for the government to consider the environmental effects and social effects as a whole when formulating environmental policies.

It is of great significance to explore the role of land supervision in the standardization of local land transactions. We document the DID strategy to systematically evaluate how land audits affect the transactions in the land market. The results show that: (1) land audits have restrained the transactions of low price of industrial lands and the high price of commercial and residential lands, raised the unit price of industrial lands transactions, and reduced the price of commercial and residential lands, and these effects would not exist in the public sectors land transactions; (2) the impacts of land audits are more pronounced in State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and enterprises with large-scale operations and high capital intensity; (3) audits have overall positive significance, which has increased the total investment of local industrial enterprises and reduced the investment bubble. However, there are no deterrent effects. The conclusions have important implications for our understanding of the loss of lands and resources, supervision, and the standardized construction of the trading market.

The innovation performance of Chinese wind power enterprises has not been effectively improved, which may be caused by the behavior of enterprises using the information asymmetry between government and enterprises to camouflage R & D and obtain policies incentives. Therefore, this paper attempts to construct an evolutionary game model of tax incentives in complex network, introduces technology spillover and reputation cost, and discusses the diffusion of R & D in Chinese wind power industry. The results show that: (1) Reducing technology spillover not only contributes to the R & D diffusion, but also reduces the peak in the proportion of enterprises with camouflaging R & D. (2) Increasing reputation cost of violations can accelerate enterprises to reach the equilibrium and reduce the time that the proportion of the behavior with camouflaging R & D decreases. (3) The increase in incentives of lower tax rate for high-tech enterprises will create “lowland effect” for high-tech enterprises. And the increase in incentives of extra deduction for R & D expenses will increase the R & D diffusion of non-high-tech enterprises, while also suppressing the peak of the proportion in non-high-tech enterprises with camouflaging R & D.

Continuously raising farmers' income is important for poverty reduction. In a multilevel government system, institutional arrangements can influence the role of grassroots governments in economic and social development. Based on the rural statistical data of 743 townships in Province A in central China from 2001 to 2012, we use the difference-in-differences (DID) approach to investigate the effect of the reform of flattening governmental hierarchy at the township level on increasing farmers' income. We find that the reform of grassroots flattening hierarchies significantly promotes the growth of farmers' income. Specifically, in the face of economic-assessment pressure from the higher-level government and the incentives of fiscal excess revenue in the reform, the township government will make full use of the greater administrative power and resources endowed by the reform to vigorously attract investment to increase the number of enterprises and provide farmers with more non-agricultural employment opportunities, thus raising their wage income. Moreover, this reform's income-increasing effect is more obvious in townships that are closer to the county seat and have more convenient transportation, a higher level of human capital, and a stronger ability to exercise administrative power.

Using hand-collected data, we find that lawyer CEOs, defined as CEOs with a legal education background, tend to make first disclosures about pending litigation cases on a timelier basis for litigation cases that end up with material losses than do non-lawyer CEOs. However, for cases that result in immaterial losses, the presence of lawyer CEOs is not associated with optimistic claims. In contrast, lawyer CEOs are less likely to issue pre-warnings prior to material settlements than non-lawyer CEOs. We attribute the latter finding to the high perceived levels of disclosure proprietary costs in terms of 'tipping one's hand' to opposing counsels. These findings suggest that lawyer CEOs do not always exhibit conservative and risk-averse disclosure styles.

Purpose The study aims to investigate the impact of industrial robot application on corporate labor cost stickiness and labor investment efficiency in China. Design/methodology/approach Using the textual analysis to construct firm-level industrial robot application indicators in China, we implement the methodology in Anderson et al. (2003) and Banker and Byzalov (2014) to estimate cost stickiness. Findings We argue that the industrial robot uses in China would increase firms’ labor adjustment costs by increasing the employment scale and upgrading the employment structure (i.e. by employing more high-skilled and high-educated labor). Consistent with our expectation through the channel of labor adjustment costs, the use of robotics increases firms’ labor cost stickiness. We further find that the positive impact is more significant among labor-intensive industries, and among state-owned enterprises with lower labor adjustment flexibility. We also find that industrial robot uses do not decrease the labor cost stickiness even when robots are more likely to substitute labor. Finally, we find that industrial robot uses significantly facilitate more efficient hiring practices by mitigating overinvestment in labor (i.e. over-hiring). Originality/value Against the backdrop of intelligent manufacturing worldwide, our study sheds new insight into the effects of new technologies on corporate labor cost behavior in developing countries. We contribute to scant studies examining how robotics, AI adoption or other automation technologies (e.g. specialized machinery, software, etc.) affect corporate cost behavior.

This study examines the long-term impacts of early coal mining on human capital outcomes. Based on coal mines across 260 prefectures in late Qing China (c.1840-1912), we find that early coal mining led to a significant rise in schooling years in 2000. We trace the historical channels and show that the influence of early coal mining has persisted through and helped shape the modernization of China, which includes local industrialization and a complimentary supply of educational infrastructure. These results suggest that in contrast to other grabbing mineral extraction, inclusive coal mining systems benefit long-term human capital accumulation and economic growth, not mining activity per se.