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Due to the demand for safety and convenience in traveling, self-driving technology has developed very fast in the past decades. In this paper, a novel technology forecasting model is developed. The topic-based text mining and expert judgment approaches are combined to forecast the technology trends efficiently and accurately. To improve the reliability of the results, multidimensional information including scientific papers, patents, and industry data is considered. Then, the model is utilized to forecast the development trends of self-driving technology in China. Data ranging from 2002 to 2019 are adopted with proper data cleaning. Topic clustering for papers and patents is performed, and the hierarchical structures are constructed. On this basis, the results of technology's evolution based on papers and patents are compared and the development trends are obtained. With these results, it is speculated that technology on "Decision" will be the next hotspot in patents. The research results of this paper will provide reference and guidance for Chinese enterprises and government in decision-making on self-driving technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of the new generation of digital technology has injected new vitality into the digital transformation (DT) and continued growth of enterprises. This paper selects data from China's A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2019 and uses transaction cost theory to empirically test the effect of enterprise digital transformation (EDT) on enterprise growth and its mechanism. Research has found that DT can significantly promote enterprise growth. The reduction of supply chain collaboration costs plays an important role as an intermediary mechanism in this process. At the same time, industry competition intensity, regional marketization level, and digital infrastructure level have played positive regulatory roles. In addition, when the enterprise's level of financing constraints is low and it is a manufacturing enterprise or state-owned enterprise, the promotion effect of EDT on enterprise growth is more significant. While expanding the research perspective and measurement methods of EDT, this paper integrates the strategic actions of EDT and the inter-enterprise collaboration costs of the supply chain into a unified theoretical framework, revealing a new theoretical mechanism for DT to promote enterprise growth. It also provides practical inspiration for relevant policy formulation and enterprise transformation and upgrading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food reserve is the cornerstone of national strategic security. China strives to build a complementary reserve system between government and enterprises, and how to improve the efficiency of food reserves is a matter of great concern to the government and society. Based on the analysis of the connotation of food reserve efficiency, this paper constructs the revenue function and the cost function of food reserve in an emergency and uses the cost-benefit method to explore the best ratio of government reserve, corporate social responsibility reserve, and commercial inventory when maximizing the efficiency of food reserve. This ratio is closely related to the total food reserve, the scale of supply interruption, the reserve cost of food stored by enterprises, and the government's subsidy cost for the social responsibility reserve. The unit subsidy cost of government to social responsibility reserve is inversely proportional to the proportion of corporate social responsibility reserve to corporate reserve. Doing a good job in the social responsibility management of food enterprises is an effective way to improve the efficiency of food reserves. To expand the scale of social responsibility reserves and realize "storing food in enterprises," the subsidies given by the government for corporate social responsibility reserves should not be too high. Taking food social responsibility reserve as an important part of corporate social responsibility, it's the key to promoting enterprises to actively undertake food social responsibility reserves. The conclusion of this paper provides a theoretical basis and decision-making reference for how to improve the efficiency of food reserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst growing environmental challenges linked to coal dependence, fostering green innovation in new energy enterprises is vital for sustainable development in China. Although there have been studies on green innovation of new energy enterprises in recent years, few studies have been conducted from the perspective of ESG, whether informal environmental regulation represented by ESG can stimulate the green innovation of new energy enterprises is of great significance to China's construction of a low-carbon and secure energy system. In this paper, from the perspective of informal environmental regulation, based on the ESG ratings of SynTaoGreen Finance's first public newenergy listed companies as an exogenous shock, and taking A-share new energy listed companies as a sample from 2010 to 2021, we empirically verified the effect and mechanism of ESG ratings on the green innovation of new energy companies in terms of the quantity and quality of green innovations by utilizing the Staggered Difference-indifference (DID) model. The findings demonstrate that new energy enterprises' green patent numbers and quality are greatly enhanced by ESG grading. However, there is clear heterogeneity in this green innovation effect, which is particularly visible in new energy firms with state-owned enterprise and greater enterprise scales and a higher level of digitization. The Mechanistic findings suggest that ESG ratings drive green innovation by alleviating financial constraints, reducing agency risk, and boosting R&D, thus providing empirical evidence for the development of a green innovation ecosystem in the new energy industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment of government investment funds serves as a crucial measure for governments at all levels to leverage their certification role and financial resources in attracting social capital to support enterprise development. This paper empirically examines the guiding certification effect and governance supervision effect of government investment funds on enterprise value enhancement, utilising panel data from listed companies and government investment fund investment event data spanning the period from 2011 to 2021. The research findings reveal that government investment funds significantly enhance the value of recipient enterprises. By leveraging their guidance and certification effects and governance supervision effects, these funds alleviate financing constraints, actively participate in corporate governance, and ultimately enhance corporate value. The impact of government investment funds is negatively moderated by the age and size of the enterprise, indicating that the "invest in early-stage and small businesses" investment strategy yields better results in promoting value enhancement. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that government investment funds have a more pronounced impact on the value of non-heavily polluting industries, enterprises located in the eastern and southern regions of China, and non-state-owned enterprises. This article expands the research scope of government investment funds at the micro level, providing empirical evidence and theoretical support for optimising government investment funding policies and fostering the development of a modern capital market with distinctive Chinese characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty remains the biggest challenge facing the world today. In 2016, the Chinese government launched a national campaign to eradicate poverty by 2020, among which Chinese listed companies have made significant contributions to. This paper focuses on the targeted poverty alleviation (TPA) and investigates the relationship between corporate participation in TPA and its corporate value. As compared to firm's own corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, participating in government-initiated CSR activities can better enhance corporate value. This is especially so when firms engage in penetrative "integrated poverty alleviation" rather than the direct approach of "donative poverty alleviation". This paper adopts the Mediating Effect Model to explain the relationship between corporate participation in TPA and their corporate value, with the shareholding ratio of institutional investors, government subsidies and corporate reputation as mediating factors. Findings suggest that corporations' active implementation of TPA actions can increase the shareholding ratio of institutional investors and government subsidies and improve corporate reputation, thereby significantly increasing their corporate value. However, the impact of participation in TPA on corporate value is limited by factors including the nature of property rights, the intensity of competition in the industry and the degree of marketization. The impact is generally more significant in state-owned enterprises, areas with lesser industry competition and higher marketization. This study provides a fresh perspective for theories related to CSR, poverty eradication and corporate value of listed companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the panel data of 625 industrial listed enterprises of China from 2012 to 2020, this paper employs the method of propensity score matching–difference in difference to investigate the effect of financial–industrial integration on the enterprise's green development performance and the moderating role of green technology innovation on the relationship between the two is also addressed. It finds that first, financial–industrial integration has a significant promoting effect on the improvement in green development performance of enterprises, and green technology innovation has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between the two. In addition, the effect of financial–industrial integration on enterprise's economic and social performance is not significant, and it mainly promotes enterprise's green development by stimulating environmental performance. Moreover, the degree of financial–industrial integration has a moderate range in which the role of financial–industrial integration can be better played. Further, compared with state-owned enterprise and large-scale enterprise, financial–industrial integration is more conducive to the green development of non-state-owned enterprises and small-scale enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to empirically examine the impact of mandatory CSR disclosure on the CEO pay performance sensitivity. Design/methodology/approach: Using the mandatory requirement of CSR disclosure as an exogenous shock, the authors compare the changes in CEO pay performance sensitivity for treatment firms with control firms through a difference-in-difference (DiD) approach. Findings: The authors find that mandatory CSR disclosure enhances CEO pay performance sensitivity. The results also show that monitoring CEO power is a conduit through which mandatory CSR disclosure affects CEO pay performance sensitivity. The positive impact is more profound in firms with a powerful CEO, i.e. one who is politically well-connected, holds dual roles as both CEO and Chairman, and/or has had a long tenure. Furthermore, the increased CEO pay performance sensitivity after the mandate is prominent among state-owned enterprises (SOEs) only. Practical implications: The findings of this paper have implications for other economies with similar institutional backgrounds as China. Although the mandatory CSR disclosure does not require firms to spend on CSR investment, the mandatory CSR disclosure alters firm behaviour, and mitigates agency problems. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the studies on the impact of CSR disclosure on firms' behaviour. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine the effects of mandatory CSR disclosure on CEO pay performance sensitivity using the quasi-natural experiment settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study explores the peer and economic effects of corporate poverty alleviation behavior. Using the data of A-share non-financial listed corporates in Shanghai and Shenzhen of China from 2016 to 2020, the empirical analysis of this study finds that: corporate poverty alleviation behavior has significant peer effects; the guidance of local poverty alleviation policies weakens the peer effects of corporate poverty alleviation behavior; compared to private enterprises, the poverty alleviation behavior of the peer firms has a more significant impact on state-owned enterprises; and corporate poverty alleviation behavior can result in the backflow of economic benefits and achieve the organic unity of economic and social benefits. The purpose of this paper is to explore the peer effects of corporate poverty alleviation behaviors through empirical analysis using available public data. The results of the study not only increase the motivation of corporate to participate in poverty alleviation from a peer effects perspective, but also reveal key factors for sustaining corporate poverty alleviation behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of US uncertainty shocks on China's macroeconomy with a focus on the dynamic response of investment. Using a structural vector autoregression (VAR) model, we find that the wait-and-see mechanism of aggregate investment in the face of heightened US uncertainty disappears in China. Robust evidence confirms that the increase in state-owned enterprises' investment in response to heightened uncertainty explains this puzzle, while private-owned enterprises' investment decreases as expected. We apply regime-dependent local projections to link uncertainty shocks with credit regimes to explore whether the impact of US uncertainty shocks on investment in China has varied over time in connection with the states of bank loans. The empirical results support a positive response of state-owned enterprises' investment to increased US uncertainty during the tightening of medium- and long-term bank loans but a negative reaction when short-term bank loans are tightening. Finally, we show that economic policy uncertainty conveying political signals leads to a decline in state-owned enterprises' investment. Overall, this paper provides richer empirical evidence on the investment-uncertainty nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-carbon pilot city (LCPC) plays a pivotal role in stimulating green innovation among enterprises. However, relying solely on policy often proves less effective, necessitating support from financial development. Yet, current research frequently overlooks the impact of financial development on LCPC policy. Drawing on economic, management, and organizational psychology theories, we investigate the influence of the financial development level on enterprise green innovation in LCPC, utilizing data from listed companies between 2010 and 2018. The main finding is that LCPC facilitates institutional-level green innovation. Concurrently, financial development augments the effectiveness of LCPC policy, further expediting green innovation activities among enterprises in these pilot cities. Heterogeneity analyses reveal that financial development significantly promotes green innovation, particularly among state-owned enterprises, those with myopic management, non-high technology industries, and businesses in the southern region within LCPC. Mechanism tests identify enterprises' financing constraints and R&D investment levels as key pathways through which financial development fosters green economic development in LCPC. This study provides micro-level evidence from China elucidating the effects of environmental policies and offers practical implications for the low-carbon transformation of the manufacturing sector amid peak emissions and carbon-neutral targets. Additionally, it provides valuable guidance for other emerging economies seeking enhanced resource and environmental protection through the implementation of energy-saving and emission-reduction fiscal policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of remarkable results obtained, China requires more sophisticated economic structure and flexible institutions to foster its development in a more difficult context. Particularly important are the integration of public and private sectors, proper division of labor between them, and cooperative distinction of roles. The expansion of the private sector and entrepreneurship have been leading factors in China's economic miracle. However, despite the numbers of new private enterprises increasing, their dynamic innovation slowed down in recent years. This negatively affects the sustainability of China's economic growth. This paper considers several reasons for the attenuation of Chinese entrepreneurship and considers that it requires the revival of enterprise and ownership reform together with support to their innovative role. The latter should complement innovation in the public sector to counterbalance the biased structure and nature of Chinese innovation and afford new international challenges. This paper contributes to identifying solutions for reversing the deterioration of entrepreneurship in the frame of enterprises and ownership reform. Solutions lie in institutional innovation, like accelerating the pace of market-oriented reform, improving corporate governance for state-owned enterprises and commercial banks, strengthening domestic competitions, and deepening the mixed ownership reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the information era, effective environmental protection cannot be achieved without public concern. In this paper, public environmental concern (PEC) is subdivided into public concern about environmental pollution (PCEP), environmental regulations (PCER), and green behavior (PCGB). Based on the data set of the listed companies in China from 2011 to 2019 and the Baidu Index, we examine the influence of the three types of PECs on enterprises' environmental protection investment (EPI) in their different stages of the enterprise life cycle. It was found that three types of PECs have a significant impact on EPI, with PCER having the greatest effect. The impact of PEC varies at stages of the enterprise life cycle, and only in the growth stage, the three kinds of PECs play a significant role in promoting enterprises' EPI, while not in the maturity and the decline stages. Heterogeneity analysis shows that this positive effect is only significant for enterprises without ISO14001 certification and those in western China; PCER can significantly promote capitalized environmental investment, while PCEP can significantly promote expensed environmental investment. The findings can help to clarify the key role of the public in supervising the enterprises' environmental protection behavior and provide a decision-making basis for enterprises to dynamically adjust their environmental investment strategies in the whole life cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The view of political achievements suggests that officials will prefer to implement measures that benefit their own development in order to seek promotions. In the past, GDP weighed heavily in officials' appraisals, leading them to develop the economy without regard to sustainability. Now that the central government has incorporated environmental indicators into the officials' appraisal system, will this lead officials to implement sustainable development strategies to the fullest extent? Are there spillover effects and regional heterogeneity in this role? This paper discusses these questions with the help of entropy method and a spatial Durbin model using data of 30 provincial-level regions in China from 2006 to 2016. The conclusions show that, firstly, the officials' competitive pressure is beneficial to enhance the sustainable development capacity of the province, but this effect is only effective in western China. Secondly, there is no spillover effect of officials' competitive pressure on sustainable development capacity; thirdly, foreign direct investment, the proportion of state-owned enterprises and environmental regulations have their own unique effects on sustainable development capacity, and there are spillover effects. Based on these findings, this paper proposes corresponding policy recommendations in terms of officials' appraisal system, talent training, foreign investment introduction, and state-owned enterprise reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's economic growth miracle of the past decades has been accompanied by a massive increase in fossil fuel consumption and severe environmental pollution. To control air pollution, China is implementing some green finance policies. Although they have improved the air quality, it is little known whether and how green finance affects the firm labor demand. Taking the 2012 Chinese green credit policy (GCP) as an exogenous setting, this paper adopts the difference-in-difference (DID) method to investigate the effect of green finance on firm labor demand based on A-share listed firms covering 2007–2017. We find that green finance had a significant negative impact on firm labor demand. Specifically, the high-polluting firms with stricter green finance constraints would reduce firm employment by 4.8%. This effect is especially prominent when firms are state-owned enterprises (SOEs) or workers are low-skilled employees. Further evidence indicates that there are the Compliance Cost Hypothesis and Porter Hypothesis in China. In these two effects, the effect of CCH dominates, so the overall effect of green finance is detrimental to corporate performance, which in turn leads to lower corporate employment. Our paper provides the real effect of green finance from the firm labor market. And this paper has strong policy recommendations that the government should reconcile the relationship between air pollution control and employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the well-documented benefits and encouraging policy environment for blockchain technology (BT), its extensive adoption in the construction industry is still unsolved. The interorganizational diffusion of BT is not explored in existing studies, requiring a comprehensive investigation for better government policymaking. Thus, from the technology diffusion perspective, this paper proposes an evolutionary game-based system dynamics (EG-SD) model to describe the complicated relationships between government and construction enterprises in the process of BT adoption. Through theoretical analysis, the main stakeholders, influencing factors, and diffusion channels in the process of BT adoption are identified. Further, a simulation collecting data from China's construction industry is conducted to evaluate the diffusion performance under different scenarios. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing a quantitative perspective for understanding BT adoption behaviors among construction enterprises and revealing the diffusion mechanism of BT from a multilevel perspective. Also, this paper for the first time combines evolutionary game theory with system dynamics into explaining BT adoption, providing practical implications to both government and construction enterprises on policymaking and promoting BT adoption practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More and more emphasis is placed on the common development of economy and ecological environment in China's development strategy, and one of the key solution is green technology innovation of enterprises. This paper takes the carbon emission trading scheme carried out in China in 2013 as a quasi-natural experiment and uses the data of China's A-share non-financial listed companies and the DID method to empirically test the impact of the scheme on enterprise green technology innovation from the micro level. The results suggest that the carbon emission trading scheme has a significant role in promoting enterprise green technology innovation, mainly through the innovation of green practical patents and alternative energy-based patent. Using a series of robustness tests such as dynamic effect test, placebo test, and PSM-DID, it is found that the results are still valid. Further analysis finds that debt financing will weaken the role of carbon emission trading scheme in promoting enterprise green technology innovation. And the carbon emission trading scheme plays a greater role in promoting green technology innovation in state-owned enterprises, enterprises belonging to areas with strong pollution control intensity and high pollution industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are facing an embedded integration of new functional mission, new classification reform and new digital development. These new tasks require SOEs to embrace digital strategic transformation and innovation for high-quality fulfillment of their national mission. Studying their digital transformation practices, this paper systematically explores the mechanism and path of embedding national mission into SOE digital transformation, and the mode selection of SOE digital transformation under different mission guidance. The findings are: (1) The SOE functional mission focusing on economic development, strategic support and public services in the new era is undertaken by for-profit, strategic and public functional SOEs; (2) the foreign circulation path based on the positioning mechanism-mapping mechanism and the internal consumption connection path for the state capital strategic positioning constitute a double twoway mechanism of embedding the national mission to the SOE digital strategic transformation, leading SOEs to build market-oriented, capacity-oriented and public-oriented digital transformation modes; (3) the three types of reform modes have respectively produced the action mechanism featuring agile strengthening, toughness strengthening and adaptability strengthening, which support the SOE classification performance. This paper attempts to make up for the research gap such as the lack of integration of the SOE digital strategic transformation mode by constructing the theoretical mode of SOE digital strategic transformation under the guidance of national mission, and reveals the intermediary mechanism of digital strategic transformation to support SOEs for fulfilling their functional missions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cash holding is an important strategic decision of enterprises. As a macro-level factor, economic policy uncertainty causes risks, affecting enterprises' cash holdings. Taking the quarterly financial data of China's A-share non-financial listed firms for 2010–2020 as a sample, this study adopts the OLS and fixed effect models to investigate how corporate cash holdings are affected by economic policy uncertainty. The findings indicate that economic policy uncertainty is directly proportional to the level of cash that listed corporations hold. The higher the uncertainty, the more cash the company holds. Among them, state-owned enterprises and the manufacturing industry are more significantly affected by economic policy uncertainty. Finally, considering the regional marketization level and the differences in financing constraints enterprises face, it is concluded through grouping empirical studies that enterprises located in regions with lower marketization levels are more susceptible to policy uncertainty, while financially constrained enterprises are more susceptible to economic policy uncertainty. The study of economic policy uncertainty is helpful to guide enterprises to realize the importance of coping strategies in advance under the background of intensifying economic policy uncertainty. Therefore, this paper proposes to introduce policies on the premise of fully considering the smoothness of the economy and the differences in the conditions of firms of different natures, as well as some proposals to alleviate financing constraints, reduce the adverse effects of uncertainty on firms, and bolster the marketization process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation plays a crucial role in transforming economic models and achieving sustainable development in enterprises. As an important embodiment of artificial intelligence technology, how industrial robots can effectively promote the green transformation of enterprises has become an important issue. This paper examines the impact and mechanisms of industrial robot adoption on corporate green innovation, as well as its heterogeneous effects. Using data from Chinese listed companies from 2007 to 2019, we find that industrial robot adoption has a significant positive impact on corporate green innovation, enhancing both its quantity and quality. Furthermore, our mechanism study reveals that industrial robot adoption can promote corporate green innovation by improving productivity and environmental management capabilities. Additionally, we investigate the moderating effects of various factors and conclude that the positive impact of industrial robot adoption on green innovation is more pronounced among the state-owned enterprises, enterprises with the intense market competition, as well as enterprises located in regions with higher carbon emissions intensity. This paper contributes to enrich the research on industrial robots and corporate green innovation, and provides a reference to improve environmental management and achieve a low-carbon economy in emerging markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change and transition risks have become major issues concerning the sustainable development of human society today. And the stranded fossil energy assets generated in this context are gradually becoming an important factor affecting corporate development and the stability of financial markets. Based on the data of China's A-share listed companies in the high-carbon industry from 1998 to 2021, a two-way fixed-effects model is used to study the determinants of corporate fossil energy asset impairment. Furthermore, a "two-stage estimation approach" is used to measure the risk of stranding corporate fossil energy assets The results show that: (1) climate transition risks are a significant cause of stranded corporate fossil energy assets; (2) the stranded risk of Chinese companies' fossil energy assets has been oscillating upward over the past two decades; (3) the stranded risk has increased significantly after the "double carbon" target. Based on the above conclusions, this paper puts forward relevant suggestions from both government and enterprise perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's higher education expansion increases firms' human capital input in terms of the number of educated employees, while its quality undergoes questioning. It is unknown what employees with higher education bring to the firm in China. Considering that investment decision is one of the most important drivers of firm value, we examine how employees with higher education affect firms' investment efficiency in this paper. We document that the number of employees with higher education increases by 89% from 2008 to 2021. We further find that more employees with higher education are associated with higher investment efficiency through mitigating over- and underinvestment. This association is stronger for firms with high product market competition, low customer concentration, state-owned enterprises, and high senior manager education. Collectively, the results suggest that the information inputs channel, monitoring channel and up-and-down communications channel are likely underlying mechanisms through which higher educated employees affect firms' investment decisions. Overall, our paper sheds light on the real effect of higher educated employees on firms' investment efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To stimulate economic growth, China has launched multiple economic stimulus plans in recent years, intensifying corporate debt financing and subsequently elevating the leverage levels. Addressing and effectively reducing the leverage levels of our country's enterprises has emerged as a pressing issue in the trajectory of our economic development. This paper primarily investigates the drivers, pathways, and mechanisms for reversing the over-leveraged values of enterprises. Key findings include: (1) Excessive indebtedness exerts a negative impact on corporate value, with the suppressing effect intensifying as the degree of over-leverage increases; (2) Over-leveraged enterprises can effectively decrease their debt levels and enhance their value through private placement. Further research suggests that this mechanism operates by amplifying the operational leverage of over-leveraged enterprises post private placement and alleviating financing constraints, thereby elevating corporate value. (3) Compared to non-state-owned enterprises, state-owned enterprises exhibit higher levels of indebtedness. Among over-leveraged firms, enhancements in corporate governance and increased investment efficiency can positively transform corporate value. This study offers valuable insights for the ongoing supply-side structural reforms and governance guidance from the regulatory bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we identify product market competition as a driver of privatization. Using product market shocks caused by trade liberalization of China, which has the world's largest state sector, we find that subjecting state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to higher competition leads to an increase in private ownership. This response is strengthened when SOEs operate in industries with large technology or productivity gaps from those in the frontier economies or when SOEs impose large fiscal burdens on local governments. Our findings are consistent with politicians' incentives to boost economic growth for better career development and to shed burdens when rents decrease. This paper was accepted by Tomasz Piskorski, finance. Funding: C. Lin acknowledges financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72192841]. Q. Hu acknowledges financial support from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and the Renmin University of China [Grant 21XNF002]. W. Li acknowledges financial support from the Major Project of the Ministry of Education [Grant 22JZD007] and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72132002]. L. Wei acknowledges financial support from the Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee [Grant 13501619]. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4847. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The authors study and compare the effects of three CEO compensation restricting policies issued by the Chinese government in 2009, 2012 and 2015. This paper aims to shed light on the conditions under which CEO compenstation can be effectively regulated without negatively affecting firm performance. Design/methodology/approach: These policies targeted state-owned enterprises (SOEs), especially central state-owned enterprises (CSOEs). Using these policies as natural experiments, the authors investigate how their effects differ on CEO compensation, firm performance and two known performance-decreasing mechanisms: perk consumption and tunneling activities. Findings: The authors show that restricting CEO pay does not necessarily backfire in terms of deteriorating firm performance. This non-decreasing firm performance can be achieved by restricting perk consumption and tunneling activities while introducing CEO pay regulations. Originality/value: The authors exploit a powerful experimental setting in the context of China. The evidence contributes to the literature on CEO pay regulations and is relevant to the managerial decisions of policy makers and boards of directors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a natural experiment mandatorily requiring listed firms to disclose R&D activities in the context of China, this paper quantifies the effects of such mandatory disclosure on analyst forecasts, and show that mandatory R&D disclosure significantly decreases analyst forecast accuracy and increases the dispersion of analyst forecasts. Then, we present the underlying mechanisms driving our findings: the ability of analysts and detailed R&D information. Finally, our results are more pronounced in state-owned enterprises and industries with little competition. We show the economic significance of mandatory R&D information disclosure on capital markets. Overall, this study contributes to the literature by evaluating the unintended consequences of mandatory R&D information disclosure on analyst forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing literature on smart city pilots mainly focuses on the city level and rarely addresses the firm level. This paper assesses the impact of smart city pilot policy (SCP) on firms' total factor productivity (TFP) and explores the impact of SCP under different heterogeneities as well as the mechanisms of action of the SCP. The LP approach is used in this paper to measure firms' TFP, and the impact of SCP is analyzed by the DID model with firms' panel data from 2009 to 2019 as research objects. First, it was found that the SCP can significantly increase the TFP of firms (0.041). Second, through heterogeneity analysis, we found that SCP can strengthen the monopoly position of monopolistic firms and state-owned enterprises. Moreover, the SCP can also alleviate the development imbalance of TFP between firms in coastal and non-coastal areas. In addition, SCP can significantly improve TFP of heavy polluting enterprises. Finally, we find that the important ways for SCP to improve firms' TFP is increasing investment in technological innovation, talent agglomeration, attracting financing, improving resource allocation efficiency, and digital transformation. The study provides unique insights for policy makers and business managers in China and other emerging countries to enhance TFP and achieve corporate sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The data of new urban investment bonds in cities from 2011 to 2021 to represent the growth of local government debt is used in this article. This paper studies the relationship between the increase of local government debt and the underinvestment of A-share listed enterprises, which are nonfinancial companies in China. The research finds that the increase in local government debt will crowd out the debt financing of enterprises and then significantly the degree of underinvestment of enterprises, which is represented non-state-owned enterprises, enterprises with high financing constraints, and enterprises with nonlocal debt invested in the industry. As for listed enterprises with relatively low fixed assets, the increase in local debt will further lead to the degree of underinvestment. The above conclusions remain unchanged after a series of robustness tests in this paper. Further research shows that the increase in local government debt will weaken the stimulus effect of loose monetary policy and thus affect the underinvestment of enterprises. This paper expands the research on the factors affecting the underinvestment of enterprises and deepens the research on the consequences of the influence of local government debt on the economic activities of microsubjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how policies of market liberalization and partial privatization of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) involved in the production and provision of key inputs – banking, energy and telecom – affect the vulnerability and resilience of an economy. SOEs' response to such policy changes and their ability to operate under the new market conditions are crucial for maintaining quality and continuity in the supply of intermediate goods and services that underlie the functioning of the economy and society. The paper analyses this issue in the context of Chinese SOEs' reforms. It finds that privatization and liberalization in China have been designed (i) to strengthen the economy's resilience, as access to private capital and foreign markets has contributed to companies' growth and to increase the stock and quality of critical infrastructure for the country; but also (ii) to minimize the vulnerabilities that arise from such policies, by envisaging measures against volatility in capital markets and the destabilizing effect of market competition through ad hoc regulation. The paper may prove relevant for the next steps of Chinese SOEs' reforms and its findings might find applicability in other geographical contexts as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese pharmaceutical industry has seen rapid development, with industrial mergers and acquisitions (M&As) increasing over the recent years. However, the studies focused on the characteristics and identified limited impacts of these M&As. This paper then intends to fill the gap by analyzing 393 completed M&As deals in China's pharmaceutical industry from 2004 to 2016 concerning 54 firms. This paper found that: (1) firms' innovation performance is higher when the industrial M&As activities are intensive. (2) M&As activity improves firms' innovation output while overly frequent M&As exert negative effects on innovation output. Stock payment is negatively associated with firms' innovation output. (3) Firms' innovation performance is statistically different between state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-SOEs. Firms' innovation performance does not vary whether the acquisition was conducted by SOEs or non-SOEs. Apart from providing empirical evidence, this paper, in turn, proposes policy implications for further innovation development in the Chinese pharmaceutical industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Income inequality is a good indicator reflecting the quality of people's livelihood. There are many studies on the determinants of income inequality. However, few studies have been conducted on the impacts of industrial agglomeration on income inequality and their spatial correlation. The goal of this paper is to investigate the impact of China's industrial agglomeration on income inequality from a spatial perspective. Using data on China's 31 provinces from 2003 to 2020 and the spatial panel Durbin model, our results show that industrial agglomeration and income inequality present an inverted "U-shape" relationship, proving that they are the non-linear change. As the degree of industrial agglomeration increases, income inequality will rise, after it reaches a certain value, income inequality will drop. Therefore, Chinese government and enterprises had better pay attention to the spatial distribution of industrial agglomeration, thereby reducing China's regional income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental protection tax is an important tool for directing environmentally friendly growth in heavily polluting enterprises, but existing research has yet to provide consistent conclusions on whether and how environmental protection tax can promote green innovation in heavily polluting industries. The paper uses a double difference model based on data from Chinese listed companies in heavily polluting industries from 2012 to 2021 to empirically investigate whether environmental protection tax drives green innovation behavior of heavily polluting enterprises. The findings show that the environmental protection tax increases the degree of green innovation in heavily polluting enterprises, primarily through the anti-driving effect, in which an increase in environmental management expenses forces firms to increase their R&D investment, which improves the degree of green technical innovation. Furthermore, the environmental protection tax has a strong promotion effect on heavy polluters' green innovation for state-owned enterprises and those in growing period or located in high marketization regions. However, this promotion effect is insignificant for non-state-owned enterprises and those in recession period, and environmental protection tax hinders green innovation of enterprises in mature period and those located in low marketization regions. Accordingly, it is suggested to improve preferential tax policies, increase investment in corporate green innovation and strengthen the supervision of environmental tax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the share of state‐owned enterprises on the Fortune Global 500 lists from 2005 to 2020. The purpose is to answer two research questions—what is the share of SOEs among the world's largest companies, and is this share increasing over the years? Regarding studies of large sets of companies, the novelty of this article is the method in which SOEs were identified—based on the criterion of actual corporate control of the state and not the threshold of state ownership. The results show that the share of SOEs in the group of the world's largest companies is higher than indicated in previous similar studies, and this value has increased significantly over the last 15 years. In 2005, there were 64 SOEs on the list; in 2020, there were 141 (with the highest number—142—in 2015). In this period, the share of SOEs in revenues doubled (to almost 30%), in assets more than tripled and the total number of employees from SOEs from the list more than doubled. However, these increases were almost solely due to the growth of the Chinese economy, which resulted in more Chinese SOEs being included on the list. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preferential access to scarce resources can bring competitive advantages and better performance to enterprises. However, the existing literature has a relatively single research path on the influencing factors of enterprise resource access, which has lack of sufficient research from the perspective of multidimensional environment. In particular, as an important factor affecting enterprises' access to external resources, few studies have given empirical results on the impact of political factors such as government structure on enterprise resource access. Preferential access to scarce resources can bring competitive advantages and better performance to enterprises. However, the existing literature has a relatively single research path on the influencing factors of enterprise resource access, which lacks sufficient research from the perspective of multidimensional environment. In particular, as an important factor affecting enterprises' access to external resources, few studies have given empirical results on the impact of political factors such as government structure on enterprise resource access. Through the discussion of multidimensional environmental factors, this paper can provide theoretical reference for the reform of government institutions and the establishment of good political relations between enterprises and the government. Focusing on the multidimensional environment of government structure, political relations, and enterprise resource acquisition, this paper takes 129 enterprises in Central China as samples and uses the structural equation model to empirically verify the relationship between the formalization of government structure, liaison mechanism, decentralization, and enterprise resource acquisition, especially the easing effect of political relations. The results show that the formalization of government structure is promoting enterprises to obtain policy resources and financial resources; the liaison mechanism helps enterprises to obtain financial resources and market resources; decentralization has a significant positive impact on enterprises' access to policy resources and market resources; and political connection magnifies the positive effect of government structure on enterprise resource acquisition, but there are differences in different dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the micro‐perspective of enterprises, this paper makes an empirical analysis on how the national risk of overseas investment affects the strategic innovation behavior of enterprises by using the samples of A‐share listed companies in China from 2010 to 2019 and emphatically tests the mechanism of the national risk of overseas investment on the strategic innovation behavior of enterprises through government subsidy and media attention. It is found that, on the whole, the national risk of overseas investment will promote the strategic innovation behavior of enterprises. In terms of mechanism, the national risk of overseas investment promotes the strategic innovation behavior of enterprises by increasing the access to government subsidy, while the mediating effect of the media attention to the national risk of overseas investment on the strategic innovation behavior of enterprises is the masking effect; that is, the national risk of overseas investment inhibits strategic innovation behavior of enterprises by increasing media attention, and this indirect inhibition weakens the direct promotion of the national risk of overseas investment to strategic innovation behavior of enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on panel data from 2010 to 2020 of 151 A-share listed food-related enterprises in China, this research uses a fixed-effect model to analyse the impact of digital transformation on total factor productivity (TFP) in food--related enterprises. Our findings indicated that digital transformation has a positive and significant catalytic effect on TFP improvement in food-related enterprises. The mechanism test revealed that both cost-saving and innovation capacity enhancement effects of digital transformation contributed to the promotion of TFP improvement in these enterprises. Moreover, our heterogeneity analysis suggested that digital transformation is more effective in enhancing TFP in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the food-related industry, indicating that SOEs play a representative role in promoting advanced productivity in agricultural development. We also found that capital-intensive and technology- intensitve food-related enterprises were experiencing productivity paradox traps. Our results confirmed that digital transformation brings catch-up effects to labor-intensive food-related enterprises and those located in major grain production regions. Overall, this research can provide valuable insights for policymakers to upgrade the digital- -enabled food industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the role of political connections in Chinese industrial enterprises receiving government fiscal subsidies. Using data on local officials and enterprises in China, we empirically examine how changes in political connections – due to turnover of key local government officials – impact enterprise subsidies. We find that enterprise subsidies decrease significantly in the year when local officials' turnover. However, subsidies change less significantly when the local party secretary is promoted locally or has greater incentives for promotion. The impact of changing political connections is greater for non-state-owned enterprises and large-scale enterprises. Our research helps understand the dynamics between local governments and markets in China. It also has important implications for regulating how subsidies are distributed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China leads the world in the volume of outward foreign direct investment (FDI) in agriculture. This status is the result of long-term policies, including the agricultural «going out» strategy and the «Belt and Road» initiative. Despite this leadership, the overall volume of both total FDI and agricultural FDI has been declining in recent years. This paper aims to analyse the structure and trends of Chinese outward FDI in agriculture, given the limited availability of statistical data. The results show that the total volume of China's agricultural FDI exceeded $106.98 billion (7.4% of China's total outward FDIs) in the period from 2005 to 2023. Despite fluctuations in investment volume, there has been a growth trend, with a peak in 2017 marked by significant transactions such as the acquisition of Syngenta. Developed countries are the primary recipients of Chinese FDI in agriculture, while developing countries dominate Chinese construction projects. The list of both investors and builders includes predominantly state-owned enter-prises. In summary, the trajectory of Chinese outward foreign direct investment in agriculture presents a compelling narrative of strategic global engagement and economic expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water environment governance of large rivers is an essential measurement of ecological protection in China. The effectiveness of governance depends highly on the fulfillment of strategic CSR (corporate social responsibility) of Chinese leading enterprises. However, the fulfillment of strategic CSR often brings economic burden to the leading enterprises and needs government compensation support. Therefore, this paper explores the impact of government compensation on the fulfillment of strategic CSR of Chinese leading enterprises by constructing a multi-stage portfolio model. The main results show that (1) the prerequisite for leading enterprises to fulfill strategic CSR is sufficient profits; (2) the increase in government compensation can significantly affect the proportion of strategic CSR fulfillment of leading enterprises; (3) only when the portfolio considers both strategic CSR and project benefits, can the leading enterprises obtain the highest economic returns and better fulfill strategic CSR. The results can provide policy reference for the government to stimulate the fulfillment of leading enterprises' strategic CSR and also give suggestions for the leading enterprises to alleviate the economic pressure brought by fulfilling strategic CSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy is the fastest growing energy source. China, the world's biggest energy consumer, is also the largest investor in renewable energy. Although it is expected that oil will continue to dominate the energy mix in China and in the world by 2040, a transition towards a renewable model in the energy sector is unfolding, which has also been acknowledged by international oil companies (IOCs). Then, how the Chinese national oil companies (NOCs) approach such a transition becomes important – to what extent their investment transform and what are the pressures and influences behind the transformation. This paper investigates the positions and decisions taken by the Chinese NOCs, through comparing the similarities and differences between these NOCs and IOCs. A neo-Gramscian theoretical framework that considers environmental governance through dynamics at material, organisational, and discursive levels is used to examine the Chinese NOCs' energy transition. We find that the Chinese NOCs' energy transition is determined by: materially, economic profits; organisationally, the administrative environmental governance structure that copes with the market competition against IOCs and other state-owned companies; and discursively, the political concept of ecological civilisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the data of China's A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2003 to 2014 and takes the pilot emission trading policy in 2007 for a quasinatural experiment to explore the role of the pilot emission trading policy in promoting enterprises' green technology innovation. The empirical research shows a Porter effect in the emission trading system in China. Specifically, first, the emission trading policy can significantly promote enterprises' green technology innovation in pilot areas. In addition, the incentive effect of emission trading policy on green technology innovation is significantly different due to the types of green patents. Second, the incentive effect of emission trading policy on enterprises' green technology innovation is different due to the nature and scale of enterprises. The incentive effect is greater in state-owned enterprises than in non-state-owned enterprises, and it is greater in large-scale enterprises than in small-scale enterprises. Finally, the incentive effect of emission trading policy on enterprises' green technology innovation has heterogeneity of regions. It has the greatest incentive effect in eastern region, followed by western region and then central region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is still controversial whether environmental supervision, as a compulsory means of environmental protection, can improve the environmental accounting information disclosure quality (EAIDQ). There is a growing debate on if different ownership structures will lead to differences in the environmental accounting information disclosed by enterprises? Thus, through constructing multiple linear regression analysis, we empirically studied the impact of ownership structure and environment supervision on the EAIDQ from both internal and external aspects. The findings presented that (1) the overall EAIDQ is not significantly affected by ownership concentration, check-and-balance of ownership, and environmental supervision. (2) The monetary environmental accounting information disclosure quality (M-EAIDQ) is lower than the non-monetary environmental accounting information disclosure quality (NM-EAIDQ). The M-EAIDQ of state-owned enterprises is higher than that of non-state-owned enterprises. The correlation between environmental supervision and the M-EAIDQ is significantly negative, and a significant positive correlation between environmental supervision and the NM-EAIDQ. The research results of this paper can supplement the existing literature and provide a basis for the government to establish environmental accounting information disclosure standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The behavior of short-term debt for long-term investment (SFLI) will probably worsen the business status of the enterprise and increase the financial risk of the enterprise. Will the credit term structure of heavily polluting enterprises improve or worsen as the environmental regulatory pressure increases? This study takes the implementation of China's new Environmental Protection Law (NEPL) as a quasi-natural experiment to evaluate the impact of environmental regulatory pressure on the short-term debt for long-term investment behavior of heavy-polluting enterprises by the approach of Difference-in-Differences (DID). The results reveals that the NEPL significantly helps heavy-polluting enterprises achieve a more sustainable development mode by alleviating their maturity mismatch problem between investment and financing of heavy-polluting enterprises, which is conducive to reducing business risks. The impact mechanisms test shows that environmental regulatory pressure is likely to inhibit their investment and financing behavior, and might generate a crowding-out effect of innovation. When considering the heterogeneity of enterprise, the impact of the NEPL is not significant in state-owned enterprises, key-monitoring enterprises, and large-scale enterprises. However, the non-consistent effect as well as the innovation crowding-out effect, need more collaborative governance countermeasures. This paper reveals the consequences of environmental regulation policies from the view of corporate's credit term structure and provides new evidence for supporting the Porter hypothesis through addressing the dilemma of SFLI in heavily polluting enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper investigates whether pollution-intensive industries develop faster in a time of economic downturn. Using firm-level panel data from 2005 to 2013, we find supporting empirical results in an analysis of China's manufacturing industries in the 2008 economic crisis. We find that pollution-intensive firms tended to produce more compared with non-pollution-intensive firms in the 2008 economic crisis, with the pre-crisis period as a baseline. We further find that this effect is more pronounced in areas with higher export dependence and a smaller proportion of production from pollution-intensive industries. The relatively faster production expansion in pollution-intensive industries is more evident for state-owned enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation is considered an important way to promote low-carbon society formation and the sustainable development of environmental engineering. However, few quantitative studies have focused on the impact of intellectual property rights (IPR) on firm green innovation (FGI). This paper constructs a quasi-natural experiment based on the IPR pilot city policy in China. We empirically investigated the influence of IPR policy on FGI using a staggered difference-in-differences (DID) model and Chinese listed company data from 2007 to 2020. The findings of this research are as follows: (1) IPR policy significantly promotes FGI, and its effectiveness is confirmed by a variety of robustness tests. (2) The IPR policy supports both green product and green process innovation, with a stronger effect on green product innovation. (3) The IPR policy encourages green independent R&D but has little influence on green joint R&D. (4) The IPR policy promotes FGI with a high knowledge intensity, state-owned enterprises, and firms in key city groups. (5) The IPR policy supports FGI primarily via two institutional channels: increasing R&D investment and easing financing constraints. This paper broadens the study of green innovation city policy and FGI development, offering new perspectives for achieving social and environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the extent to which electricity shortage influences technical efficiency using data of 805 listed manufacturing companies in China from 2009 to 2020 collected from the CSMAR database. To achieve the objectives of this paper, first, a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) is used to estimate the technical efficiency (TE) score of manufacturing companies. Subsequently, the TE score is used to evaluate the electricity shortage index and other factors that are postulated to affect enterprise productivity. Two estimation methods have been adopted including ordinary least squares (OLS), which is less robust to endogeneity and instrumental variable (IV) estimation, which turns out to be more robust to endogeneity in the data. The empirical results show that, under OLS estimation, electricity shortage has a significantly negative impact on the technical efficiency of the listed manufacturing companies. However, when IV regression is implemented to address endogeneity issues in the data, electricity shortages tend to have a significantly positive impact on the technical efficiency, underscoring the importance of capturing endogeneity in the data. Extending the baseline results, this study also finds that, while the size of an enterprise may have no bearing, state-owned companies are more likely to be negatively affected by electricity shortages compared to privately owned companies. These results have significant implications for industrial policy design in China in particular, and developing countries in general. Most importantly, the results of this study underscore the importance of policies and measures to promote a shift in the ownership structure towards the private sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the relationship between the local chairperson of the board and the cash dividend distribution level by using annual data from A-share listed firms in China. Firstly, the empirical results show a firm's cash dividend distribution level will increase when the firm has a local chairperson. The analysis of mediating effect concludes that the local chairperson can improve corporate performance by alleviating the first type of principal-agent problems, and this ultimately increases its cash dividend distribution level. Secondly, the cross-sectional tests show this consistency has a greater effect on the cash dividend distribution levels of state-owned enterprises and those that embraced high-quality external audits. Finally, this relationship will be weakened in firms that have the more serious second type of principal-agent problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]