Creating an Institutional Environment for Protecting the Rights and Interests of China’s Dispatched Labor

Employment is fundamental in improving the livelihood of the people and social security is the source ofhuman happiness. This is how the international community protects and improves basic human rights. It is also the policy China has adopted to achieve sustainable economic and social development. Furthermore, it is clear evidence of China＇s respect and protection of human rights.

Unequal Development and Territorial Competitiveness of Network Economy

The territorial consideration is enclosed in the development of network economy and e-Business, and there is no departure of the cultivation of e-Business from the establishment of territorial competitiveness. The traditional theory of the territorial competitiveness has come across a serious impact from the Internet. So the development of Intemet infrastructures and institutional environment would be something new to the theory of territorial competitiveness in the Internet era.

On Efficiency of the Compulsive Institution in the Environment Governance

Limited by the condition of information, technology and natural elements, the compulsive institutions in the environment governance can not form a “hard constraint” to the individuals. Because of the individual's speculative behaviors, the government's deviation from its environmental governance, and the non-cooperative game between individuals and the legal organization, the implementation of the compulsive institutions is not as good as being expected. Through analyzing the mechanism of the compulsive institutions, this paper puts forward some suggestions to enhance the efficiency of such institutions' implementation.

Family control,institutional environment and cash dividend policy:Evidence from China

Using a sample of 1486 Chinese A-share listed companies for the period 2004-2008,this study empirically tests the impact of family control,institutional environment and their interaction on the cash dividend policy of listed companies.Our results indicate that(1)family firms have a lower cash dividend payout ratio and propensity to pay dividends than non-family firms;(2) a favorable regional institutional environment has a significant positive impact on the cash dividend payout ratio and propensity to pay dividends of listed companies;and(3) the impact of the regional institutional environment on cash dividends is stronger in family firms than in non-family firms.Somewhat surprisingly,we find that controlling family shareholders in China may intensify Agency Problem Ⅰ(the owner-manager conflict) rather than Agency Problem Ⅱ(the controlling shareholder-minority shareholder conflict),and thus have a significant negative impact on cash dividend policy.In contrast,a favorable regional institutional environment plays a positive corporate governance role in mitigating Agency Problem 1 and encouraging family firms to pay cash dividends.

Corporate innovation and environmental investment:The moderating role of institutional environment

Corporate environmental investment helps improve corporate environmental performance,which,therefore,is an effective micro-level solution to mitigate environmental concerns generated by corporate excessive resource exploitation and energy use.Using Chinese listed firms within environment-related industries over the period 2011–2018 as the research setting,this study applies the panel data model to investigate the impact of corporate innovation on environmental investment,as well as the moderating effects of institutional factors.The results show that corporate innovation significantly improves firms'environmental investment with 1%Research&Development(R&D)investment ratio increase generating 2326 CNY(around 351 USD at 2018 exchange rate)increase in environmental investment;the moderating effect of environment policy is positive and significant while the moderating effect of internationalisation level is not significant,indicating that current environment policy implementation helps to strengthen the positive impact of corporate innovation on environmental investment while the role of internationalisation level in this nexus is not observed.From a micro-level perspective,the findings of this study shed light on mitigating environmental concerns through enhancing corporate innovation,and provide evidence that China's corporate internationalisation process awaits more regulatory controls.

Institutional Environment, Blockholder Characteristics and Ownership Concentration in China

Using a sample of China’s A-share listed companies for the period 2001-2004,this paper investigates the influence of institutional environment variables,including the process of marketization,level of local government intervention,and local legal environment,on blockholder characteristics and ownership concentration,and the relation between the endogeneity of ownership structure and institutional environment.Our results indicate that the effects of these variables on ownership concentration are(1)positive for listed companies controlled by state asset management bureaus affiliated with local governments,(2)negative for listed companies controlled by state-owned enterprises affiliated with local governments and(3)unclear for listed private companies.These variables also positively affect the degree of privatization of listed companies in China.

Institutionalization of Higher Vocational Education in China:A Neoinstitutionalist Perspective

From the perspective of neoinstitutionalism,higher vocational education has become an emerging institution in Chinese society.Its development over three decades entails a trend of institutionalization of higher vocational education.In such a process,higher vocational education is gaining legitimacy and experiencing isomorphic changes.Various challenges have indicated an absence of institutional legitimacy at all levels of higher vocational education,namely regulative,normative,and cultural-cognitive legitimacy.The latter two are considered key for the ongoing process of institutionalizing higher vocational education.Moreover,the emergence and development of higher vocational education in China has indicated isomorphic changes in Chinese higher education in terms of non-university sectors,practical/skills learning,teachers with dual qualifications and graduate employment.

Entrepreneurial activities and institutional environment in China

This article aims to examine the relationship between the quality of an institutional environment and the characteristics of entrepreneurial activities within the context of China.An event study was conducted to investigate the impacts of the announcement of the Forbes China Rich List on prices of the shares associated with entrepreneurs on the list.This article concludes that the quality of an institutional environment is greatly negatively related to unproductive entrepreneurial activities.

Tax Burden,Institutional Environment and Foreign Direct Investment Flow:From the Perspective of Asymmetric International Tax Competition

The global economic uncertainty is mounting.Governments need to respond with supporting measures for long-term external environment changes as they lower tax burden to attract working capital.Based on the asymmetric tax competition theory,this paper constructs a theoretical model of tax burden,institutional transaction costs and FDI flow.It is found that one country’s strength of institutional environment makes its equilibrium tax rate higher than that of another within certain limits of market size.Based on the data of 199 countries and regions from 2005 to 2018,this paper conducts an empirical analysis,proving that favorable institutional environment narrows the negative impact of tax burden on FDI fl ow.Moreover,it is showed that in small-market,low-income countries and regions,tax burden level has a larger negative impact on foreign direct investment(FDI)when institutional environment produces no positive impact;in large-market,high-income countries,the negative impact of tax burden is relatively weak but the institutional environment shows largely positive impact.This paper contributes some policy recommendations on how to make use of and improve institutional environment to meet challenges and impacts of the international economic climate.

Institutional environment and risk of a stock price crash:evidence from China

Stock price crashes damage China’s macro-financial stability,restrict economic growth,and can lead to huge losses in wealth for investors.Therefore,how to reduce the risk for stock price crashes is an important theoretical and practical issue.This paper mainly studies the effects of the institutional environment that creates risks for stock price crashes.Using China’s non-financial A-share listed companies from 1997 to 2012 as an example,this paper finds that the lower the level of government intervention is,the better the legal environment is,the faster the market process in business area is,then the lower the risks for stock price crashes will be.To solve the endogenous problem between the institutional environment and the risk of a stock price crash,this paper uses the number of seaports and whether the commercial ports or leased territories are opened after the first Opium War in Qing Dynasty as instrumental variables of the institutional environment.We find that the above conclusion is still valid with the method of 2SLS regression.Furthermore,this paper also finds that the government intervention index,the legal environment index,and the market index are negatively related to stock price synchronicity to a significant degree.These conclusions illustrate that the institutional environment is an important factor in the healthy and stable development of the capital market,which has important implications for policy markers or regulators to develop policies to promote the stable development of the stock market,to control market risk of listed companies,and to make investment decisions.

Corporate Donations in China： A Strategic- Political Perspective

This paper explores how the influences corporate donations, based on political identity of top managers upper echelons theory （UET）. The results show that the political identity of the top manager has a significant impact on the donation behavior of a company, especially in areas with poor institutional environments. Corporate donations depend not only on whether the top manager has a political identity but also the type of this identity. Furthermore, the impact differs significantly between companies with different ownership structures. This study enriches our knowledge of corporate philanthropy by demonstrating that corporate donation practices are shaped by a range of contextual factors. Corporate giving behaviors in emerging economies such as China are differently motivated according to the fundamentally different aspects of their institutional settings.

Economic freedom and IPO underpricing

This paper examines how the difference in institutional environments constitutes differential IPO underpricing across countries. Using the Heritage Foundation＇s Index of Economic Freedom （IEF） as a proxy for the heterogeneous institutional environment, and a sample of 3728 IPOs from 22 countries and regions over the period 1993--2014, we find that countries with higher economic freedom have significantly less serious IPO underpricing problems. Moreover, we find that among the 10 economic freedom factors covered by theIEF, financial freedom related factors play a more important role in reducing the IPO underpricing problem. Finally, consistent with the market sentiment hypothesis, we find strong evidence that pre-IPO market sentiment influences IPO firstday returns, and that the IPO underpricing problem is less severe when the market is bearish.

Housing Market Speculation and Firm Productivity:Evidence from China

An appreciation in the price of housing could generate speculation opportunities for enterprises.Many firms try to seize these opportunities for quick returns.This may harm their productivity.We use the real estate boom and the investment activities of Chinese manufacturing firms during 2006–2017 to examine the processes and the net effect of housing market speculation on firm productivity.We find that housing market speculation negatively affects firm productivity by crowding out investments in research and development and productive fixed assets,and the positive effect brought about by a strengthened balance sheet and better financing capacity is outweighed by the crowding-out effect.This negative impact is more evident in state-owned firms,but is mitigated in regions and periods with better business environments.Set in the overheated housing market in China,our study contributes to the existing literature by exploring how firms’investments outside of their main business influence firm behavior and productivity.