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Purpose: High-quality labor supply is inevitable to maintain sustainable and steady economic growth. This study mainly explores the impact of the social pension system on the health of human capital, and further explores its impact mechanism. Design/methodology/approach: On the basis of the data from China Family Panel Studies from 2012 to 2018, this article uses the fixed effect model and the mediation effect model to empirically study the influence of the social pension scheme on the health of human capital and further explore its influence mechanism. Findings: This study shows that the social pension scheme can significantly improve the physical and mental health of laborers, especially for low-income and agricultural groups. The implementation of the social pension scheme contributes to increasing medical services and reducing the labor supply for the benefit of human health capital. Therefore, the government should continue to expand the coverage of the social pension scheme and comprehensively improve the importance of human health capital on economic growth. Practical implications: Medical costs and labor supply play a mediating effect in the relationship between social pension and rural labors' health status, which indicates that medical costs and labor supply level are still important factors affecting the health status of rural labor. There are essential factors affecting the health status of the rural labor force, and their role should be given more consideration in the process of system design and improvement. Originality/value: The existing studies have more frequently studied the effect of the implementation of social pension schemes from the perspective of economic performance, but this paper evaluates the policy effect of social pension schemes based on the perspective of health human capital, which enriches research on health performance in related fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: China's New Rural Pension Program (NRPP) has been implemented for a decade, but the factors that facilitate rural residents' participation have received little attention. This study aims to investigate whether financial literacy has an influence on rural residents' behavior of participation in the NRPP. In particular, this study further verifies if high financial literacy is important and whether financial education can enhance the impact of financial literacy on current, long-term and dynamic pension decisions of rural households. Design/methodology/approach: This study investigates the impact of financial literacy on rural residents' participation in China's NRPP using the China Household Financial Survey (CHFS) Data of 2015 and 2017. This study constructs an analytical framework for current, long-term and dynamic impacts and comprehensively analyzes the value of financial literacy in the decision making of the NRPP. This study uses the instrumental variable method to solve the possible endogeneity problem. In addition, the authors also demonstrate the positive role of high financial literacy in household pension decisions. Further analysis reveals gender and regional heterogeneity in the impact of financial literacy on pension decisions. The moderating effect model explores whether financial education has a significant moderating effect on financial literacy and pension decision making of the NRPP. Findings: Financial literacy can improve the participation behavior of households in rural areas (dynamic effect) and promote their current and long-term participation in the NRPP, choosing a higher pension contribution level in the NRPP. However, financial literacy has no significant effect on the change in the contribution amount of the NRPP. Further research finds that high financial literacy has comparative advantages in household pension decision making in rural areas. There are gender and regional differences in the impact of financial literacy on pension decisions. In addition, effective financial literacy education enhances the current, long-term and dynamic impacts of residents' financial literacy on NRPP participation and pension contributions. Practical implications: This study comprehensively considers the impact of financial literacy on pension decision making behavior from three aspects: current, long-term and dynamic, making up for the dearth in the existing literature that only focuses on the impact of financial literacy on current financial behaviors and bridging the gap between the theoretical framework and experimental results. Our study proposes new policy implications: (1) Governments and financial institutions should pay attention to financial literacy and education levels in rural areas and carry out financial education and training programs to increase social welfare levels by increasing rural residents' participation and pension contribution. (2) The community can strengthen the policy advocacy of the NRPP and make people develop a stronger sense of trust toward it. The government can also subsidize individual accounts through financial support. Originality/value: This study comprehensively considers the impact of financial literacy on pension decision-making behavior from three aspects: current, long-term and dynamic, making up for the dearth in the existing literature that only focuses on the impact of financial literacy on current financial behaviors and bridging the gap between the theoretical framework and experimental results. Our study proposes new policy implications: (1) Governments and financial institutions should pay attention to financial literacy and education levels in rural areas and carry out financial education and training programs to increase social welfare levels by increasing rural residents' participation and pension contribution. (2) The community can strengthen the policy advocacy of the NRPP and make people develop a stronger sense of trust toward it. The government can also subsidize individual accounts through financial support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: How to realize social capital "exit from virtual to real" has become not only a hot issue that elicited economists' and the practice field's concern but also a key economic structure problem that the government has to solve urgently. The main purpose of this study is to explore effective methods for social capital to "exit from virtual to real". Design/methodology/approach: The study investigates the realization path of social capital's "exit from virtual to real" by using firm theory and data from the National Bureau of Statistics in China. Provincial panel data are also utilized to empirically test the impact of social capital's de-realization to virtual (or from virtual to real) on economic development and whether the path of social capital "from virtual to real" is valid. Findings: This study analyzes the development status of social funds serving the real economy and the hazards of social funds' "exit from real to virtual," which are mainly viewed as eroding the development of the real economy and causing operating difficulties. On the basis of firm theory, the internal motivation for why social funds flow to the real economy is explored from the perspectives of the needs of the real economy, price and profit. Moreover, this study designs a path for returning social capital to the real economy. Practical implications: Overall, expanding aggregate demand while providing an effective supply and implementing a proactive fiscal policy that focuses on structural tax cuts while keeping margins in the virtual economy are appropriate for promoting the competitiveness of the real economy. Originality/value: This study explores a topic, namely, social capital "exit from virtual to real," that has received little attention. It provides an in-depth discussion of the following questions. (1) What is the current situation of social capital serving the real economy? (2) What kind of harm can social capital bring to society? What are the inherent barriers to the flow of social capital to the real economy? (3) At this stage, how can the effective transformation of social capital into the real economy be realized? The findings help in understanding the sustainable entrepreneurship concept, particularly in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the accounting system reform on corporate innovation behavior and the heterogeneity and underlying mechanisms of this impact. This paper further aims to study the impact of accounting system reform on corporate value. Design/methodology/approach: This study takes China's A-share listed corporates as a sample and uses the exogenous policy shock of the implementation of the New Accounting Standards in 2007 to design the identification strategy of propensity score matching and difference-in-differences method. By comparing the differences between the innovation level of corporates in high-tech industries and non-high-tech industries before and after the implementation of the New Accounting Standards, the impact of the accounting system reform on corporates' innovative behavior can be identified. Findings: Results show that compared with corporates in traditional industries, high-tech corporates obtained higher patent output after the implementation of the New Accounting Standards. This reform mainly affects corporate innovation by improving corporate risk-taking. In addition, this paper finds that the reform of the accounting system has increased the market value of high-tech corporates in the long run. Originality/value: This study provides new empirical evidence for addressing the insufficient innovation incentives for market entities and enriches the existing literature on the economic effects of the change of accounting systems and the influencing factors of corporate innovative behavior from the accounting system perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Economic policy uncertainty (EPU) has huge impact and harm on real economy, so the economic logic and other economic effects behind this must be further studied. By constructing the "China Economic Policy Uncertainty Index" to capture the degree of EPU faced by Chinese companies, the authors empirically test whether and how EPU affects the level of executives' perquisite consumption. Design/methodology/approach: This study investigates the relationship between EPU and executive perquisite consumption based on a sample of 3,185 publicly listed firms in China. To examine the relationship between EPU and executives' perquisite consumption, a mixed least squares method was used for regression. To alleviate the problem of missing variables that do not change over time and control the influence of unobservable individual heterogeneity at the firm level, the firm fixed effects model is used for regression. Findings: The study finds that EPU is positively associated with executive perquisite consumption. This positive association is stronger for firms with smaller size, lower management shareholding and higher levels of separation of ownership and control. Effective external governance (i.e., analyst coverage, media coverage, auditor and market competition) can mitigate the relationship between EPU and executive perquisite consumption. Further analysis reveals that EPU increases executive perquisite consumption by holding more cash and decreasing firm risk taking. EPU hurts market value of firms by boosting executive perquisite consumption and tunneling. Practical implications: In an environment with high EPU, the board of directors should reduce managers' compensation performance sensitivity to ease the agency conflict caused by uncertainty. Firms should improve their governance mechanisms and standard and pay attention to their environmental changes. Policymakers should pay attention to maintaining the continuity and predictability of policies, stabilizing the economic policy expectations of market entities and avoiding frequent changes in policies that can harm economic and firm value. The regulatory authorities should actively guide listed companies to increase active information disclosure during periods of high policy uncertainty. Originality/value: This study contributes to the research on corporate governance by showing how EPU influences executives' behaviors. The authors advance relative studies by showing that this uncertainty embedded in a firm's external environments influences executive perquisite consumption. This study also contributes to the literature on how internal and external governances influence corporate behavior during uncertainty. These findings extend this line of research by suggesting that effective external governance is an attribute that can alleviate the effect of uncertainty on managers' opportunistic behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]