Balance of payments equilibrium as an essential objective of macroeconomics is of great significance for promoting internal and external economic balance, safeguarding national economic security, and ensuring financial stability. The United States. has sustained persistent “twin deficits” in its current account and fiscal balance without triggering a balance of payments crisis. The key to this puzzle lies in the delay capacity of balance of payments. Capital gains driven by valuation effects bolster the U.S. external solvency, relax its financial constraints, and enhance debt repayment capacity. This mechanism postpones necessary balance-of-payments adjustments, thereby reinforcing the exorbitant privilege of the U.S. dollar and perpetuating America's “BoP deficit without tears”, and the U.S. monetary policy adjustment will generate wide spillover effect to other countries.
In context of “two overall situations”, China is facing up challenges in achieving “dual circulation”. On the one hand, economic and trade frictions between the United States and China escalated, however, bilateral economic ties between the two countries are too connected to decouple. The changes in the U.S. balance-of-payment adjustment policies directly impact China's external economy. By analyzing how the valuation effects influence the delay capacity of balance of payments, a deeper understanding of the delayed privilege that the valuation effect confer on the United States under the current international monetary system, can facilitate accurate assessment of global economic trends and effectively, manage the spillover effects of the U.S. policy adjustments; On the other hand, China is at a critical stage in transferring to a mature creditor country, marked by significant structural shifts in its balance of payments. The decline in current account surplu may become normal in the future. Enhancing China's delay capacity of the balance of payments can help buffer against external risks, promote the domestic and international dual circulation, therefore achieve the internal and external balance.
This paper explores the theoretical modeling and empirical analysis to examine the logical relationships between valuation effects and external imbalances / delay capacity of balance of payments. Firstly, based on an intertemporal budget constraint framework, this paper demonstrates that positive valuation effects contribute to smoothing negative external imbalances and enhance a nation's delay capacity of balance of payments. Secondly, by utilizing macroeconomic data from the External Wealth of Nations Database, World Development Indicators, and Federal Reserve Economic Data, the paper constructs a panel dataset covering 50 economies from 1990 to 2020, empirically testing the valuation effects' impact on external imbalances and delay capacity of balance of payments. The heterogeneity analysis reveals that, in terms of the sources of valuation effects, the impact of exchange rate and filed factors on delay capacity exhibits more significant. In terms of asset category, equity net assets are crucial for strengthening the valuation effects and thus the delay capacity. In terms of country types, the countries with low economic growth, high political risk and high dependency ratio, the negative valuation effects have a more significant impact on reducing the delay capacity of balance of payments.
The empirical findings further confirm the spillover effects of the U.S. policy adjustments on peripheral economies under the international monetary system, as well as how these countries can enhance their own delay capacity of the balance of payments. By absorbing capital gains from emerging markets and the low and middle-income countries,the U.S. monetary policy adjustments can temporarily impact the valuation effects of these countries, enhance its own balance of payments resilience while weaken the others' delay capacity to adjustment, thus maintaining the U.S. “BoP deficit without tear”. This highlights the asymmetry in global economic rebalancing. Other countries can enhance its delay capacity by valuation effects by strengthening monetary policy independence, improving official asset structure (e.g. increasing gold reserves) and enhancing the exchange rate flexibility, enlarge the improvement of valuation effect in delay capacity.
This paper ’s marginal contributions to current literature are reflected in three key aspects. Firstly, it enriches the theory of global economic rebalancing and validate the core of U.S. delay capacity of balance of payments and the economic logic behind a“deficit without tear”. Secondly, it identifies the long-term mechanism underlying the “deficit without tears” in the U.S. balance of payments and proposes that asset price volatility is the core determinant of the delay capacity. Thirdly, it highlights the asymmetry and unfairness of global imbalances, offers crucial insights into the redistribution effects of global balance of payments rebalancing, and provides a reference for peripheral economies in the international monetary system (including China) in maintaining the internal and external economic balance.
The policy implications of this paper are as follows. Firstly, the valuation effects can temporarily adjust the external imbalances, but in the long run, the result of valuation effects is equilibrium and the improvement of real economic structure is the key to rebalancing; Secondly, a country can optimize its asset and liability structure to reduce the influence from negative valuation effects caused by core countries' monetary policy adjustments, alleviate their own external adjustment pressure, better smooth financial market fluctuations, and ensure sustainable economic development; Thirdly, the responsibility for rebalancing global imbalances is unevenly distributed, with the delayed capacity of core countries such as the United States moves burden on other countries. Given China's significant role in global trade and investment networks, in the long term, China should not only share the responsibility of adjustment and also insist on relying on multilateral platforms to play a role in global macroeconomic policy coordination; Fourthly, for China and other emerging market economies, improving currency status and monetary functions may be conducive to external economic rebalancing. In this context,strengthening the Renminbi's functions as international currency are the key efforts to promote high-level financial openness, build a strong financial country, and achieve Chinese-style modernization.

Based on theoretical analysis, this paper empirically tests whether financial inclusion can realize pro-poor growth by constructing a household-level Financial Inclusion Index using the 2015-2019 CHFS data, and employing a panel quartile model and a regime-varying model. The study finds that: (1) Financial inclusion can help achieve pro-poor growth, as evidenced by the fact that financial inclusion can promote the growth of total income of households, especially low-income households; (2) The sub-income heterogeneity analysis shows that financial inclusion can help achieve pro-poor growth of labor income, but is not conducive to such growth in property or transfer income; (3) The analysis of urban-rural heterogeneity shows that financial inclusion can help both urban and rural households achieve pro-poor growth, helping to narrow the internal income gaps within urban and rural areas; (4) The analysis of heterogeneity in the intensity of financial regulation shows that financial inclusion has a more pronounced role in promoting pro-poor growth in areas with stronger financial regulation, while its effect is limited in areas with weaker financial regulation; (5) The analysis of the mechanism shows that financial inclusion can promote entrepreneurship and labor mobility in households, especially low-income households; (6) The further analysis shows that financial inclusion can have the effect of "enriching the low-incomes and expanding the middle-class" through pro-poor growth.
The marginal contributions of this paper are primarily reflected in the following three aspects:
First, from a perspective standpoint, this paper adopts a pro-poor growth framework and systematically demonstrates—through both theoretical derivation and empirical testing—how financial inclusion directly influences economic opportunities and income growth across different income groups, thereby enhancing the understanding of the mechanisms through which financial inclusion achieves its positive effects.
Second, in terms of content, this paper refines the effects of financial inclusion on income growth across different income subcategories, urban and rural households, and varying levels of financial regulatory intensity. This helps clarify the ongoing debate in the literature concerning the pro-poor and trickle-down effects of financial inclusion, and offers fresh insights into understanding the complexities of financial inclusion within diverse economic contexts and development models. Additionally, it analyzes the mechanisms through which financial inclusion influences pro-poor growth from the perspectives of household entrepreneurship and labor mobility, and further explores its “enriching the low-incomes and strenthening the middle-class” effects, thereby significantly enhancing the practical implications of the findings.
Third, from a methodological perspective, this paper constructs a household-level financial inclusion index, and applies a panel quantile model and a regime-varying model, comparing these with mean estimations. This approach not only avoids the ecological fallacy that may arise in macro-index analysis but also more precisely captures the impact differences of financial inclusion on households at varying income levels, providing a clear illustration of how financial inclusion influences pro-poor growth.

Driven by the integration of the digital economy with the real economy, the digital transformation among enterprises has progressed rapidly in China. Prior research highlights that the digital transformation of enterprises and banks has significantly expanded the scale of corporate debt . However, it is crucial to recognise that Chinese enterprises continue to face persistent challenges in accessing credit. Furthermore, digital finance still encounters notable barriers and inefficiencies, limiting its ability to fully support the sustainable development of the real economy.
A critical reason for this phenomenon lies in the prominent issues of information fragmentation during the digital transformation process. Transformation efforts have primarily focused on internal processes within enterprises, often overlooking the digital synergy between enterprises and their external stakeholders in the broader ecosystem. This raises an important question: to what extent can digital synergy between enterprises and banks help break down information silos, enhance firms' access to credit, and strengthen the capacity of digital finance to effectively empower the real economy？
In this paper, we construct a “firm-bank-year” level dataset using bank loan data from A-share listed companies between 2014 and 2022. We find that: (1) higher levels of digital synergy between firms and banks significantly enhance firms' ability to access credit; (2) this effect is primarily driven by two channels—enhanced information coordination and governance coordination; (3) the impact is more pronounced in scenarios where digital synergy is substantive, firm-bank cooperative relationships are weaker, or banks exhibit a greater reliance on soft information; (4) in further analysis, compared to “dual low” synergy, moderate levels of digital synergy significantly enhance firms' credit access capabilities. Additionally, digital synergy between firms and banks contributes to optimizing the overall credit structure of firms.
Our paper makes several notable contributions to the literature. First, it expands the research on the economic consequences of digital transformation. Prior studies primarily focus on the impact of digital transformation of single firm on its operational performance or its spillover effects on stakeholders. This paper incorporates the digital transformation of both firms and banks into a unified analytical framework, shedding light on the economic consequences of digital synergy among stakeholders. Second, it enriches the understanding of firm-bank relationships. Prior research mainly examines the economic outcomes of firm-bank relationships from the perspectives such as cooperative characteristics, equity linkages and geographic proximity. This study reveals that digital synergy between firms and banks contributes to optimizing firm-bank relationships. Third, our paper explores the heterogeneity of firm-bank digital synergy and provides both theoretical explanations and empirical evidence on the channels through which digital synergy influences firms' access to credit. The findings of this study demonstrate that digital synergy enhances firms' credit access capabilities by improving information coordination and governance coordination between banks and firms. Furthermore, it identifies differentiated effects of substantive versus strategic digital synergy types, on the relationship between firm-bank digital collaboration and credit access.
This paper also offers several policy implications. First, it emphasizes the need to actively promote digital synergy between firms and banks to create a virtuous cycle between the financial sector and the real economy.Second, it highlights the importance of increasing subsidies for digital transformation initiatives, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) .Enhanced financial support from governments would enable SMEs to participate in collaborative digital initiatives with banks, thereby laying a sustainable financial foundation for their long-term high-quality growth. Third, the study highlights the need to strengthen innovation, application, and integration of digital technologies to promote substantive digital synergy between firms and banks. To maximize the benefits of digital collaboration, firms and banks should engage in deeper cooperation, thereby reinforcing foundational data infrastructure, cultivating a resilient and interconnected digital ecosystem, and facilitating more efficient information sharing and seamless business coordination between banks and firms.

For a long time, the difficulty of financing has remained a pain point that restricts the development of small and micro enterprises. In recent years, local governments across China have established guarantee risk compensation funding mechanisms to provide risk compensation for loan guarantees that have been compensated by guarantee institutions, gradually forming a new model of “Government-Bank-Guarantee”. In theory, the new model aims to achieve the goal of risk sharing through government departments, banks, and guarantee institutions in proportion, which helps reduce potential conflicts of interest and behavioral deviations between banks and guarantors in the process of small and micro enterprise loans, thereby alleviating the financing difficulties of small and micro enterprises. However, at present, few studies have empirically tested the impact of the risk compensation and “credit enhancement” mechanisms under the new “Government-Bank-Guarantee” model on small and micro enterprise investment from the perspective of risk sharing. In this context, this article focuses on exploring whether the new “Government-bank-guarantee” model can motivate small and micro enterprises to invest. The findings offer not only important micro evidence for risk sharing theories, but also practical support for the government to further promote the development of small and micro enterprises by improving the construction of a multi-level financing guarantee system.
This article is based on a sample of small and micro enterprises from the “National Tax Survey Data” from 2010 to 2016, and uses the 2014 pilot of the “Central Financial Guarantee Risk Sharing Compensation” policy as a quasi-natural experimental scenario to examine the specific impact of the new “Government-bank-guarantee” model on investment in small and micro enterprises using the difference in differences method.
The research draws the following conclusions: Firstly, the new “Government-bank-guarantee” model has a significant incentive effect on the investment of small and micro enterprises. Following its implementation, the new fixed asset investment by small and micro enterprises in pilot regions has increased by an average of 15.34%, which is a very significant increase in investment. In addition, the higher the proportion of financial special risk compensation funds, the stronger the investment incentive effect. Secondly, mechanism testing shows that the new “Government-bank-guarantee” model is conducive to increasing credit availability, reducing financing costs for small and micro enterprises, and thereby promoting their investment. Thirdly, about 40% of the increase in investment rate for small and micro enterprises is attributable to the growth of production and operation investments, and the impact of the new “Government-bank-guarantee” model on non-operational investments and R&D investments is not significant. The new “ Government-bank-guarantee ” model has significantly reduced the non-productive expenses of small and micro enterprises in building government business connections, and increased advertising and promotional expenses. Fourthly, under the risk sharing mechanism, both banks' loan loss provisions and bank provisions have both decreased, leading to the problem of “free rider” behavior. Meanwhile, due to the heavy comprehensive financing costs and tax burdens of small and micro enterprises, the new “Government-bank-guarantee” model has not significantly promoted their profit growth.
Based on the above conclusions, this article draws the following insights: firstly, accelerate the rollout of the new “Government-bank-guarantee” model and continue to improve the construction of a multi-level financing guarantee system. Promote the development of government supported financing guarantee companies, alleviate the financing difficulties of small and micro enterprises, and increase support for labor-intensive small and micro enterprises. Secondly, strengthen the mechanism for sharing and compensating financing guarantee risks, fully leverage the role of government financing guarantee funds, and moderately increase the proportion at central and provincial levels. Thirdly, in order to avoid free riding behavior by banks and guarantee institutions, we must adhere to the principle of moderate compensation while strengthening the sense of responsibility of banks and enhancing the risk assessment before lending to small and micro enterprises. Fourthly, the effective operation of the new “Government-bank-guarantee” model also requires a sound credit environment, guiding small and micro enterprises to establish credit awareness and reduce credit risks in economic activities. Fifthly, effectively reduce the comprehensive financing costs of small and micro enterprises and lower loan surcharges; At the same time, it reduces the tax burden on enterprises and increases the profit growth space for small and micro enterprises. Sixthly, strengthen financial support for enterprises in key areas, especially guide banks to actively connect with technology-based small and micro enterprises, and further stimulate the R&D investment motivation of small and micro enterprises.
Different from existing literature, the marginal contributions of this article mainly lie in: firstly, it broadens the research on investment in small and micro enterprises from the perspective of risk compensation and credit enhancement. Whereas prior studies have largely focused on the investment and financing of small and micro enterprises from the perspectives of tax policies, the institutional environment, or fintech. How to promote the loan willingness of banks and other financial institutions through risk compensation and “credit enhancement” mechanisms is the key to solving small and micro enterprises financing bottlenecks. This article enriches the relevant research perspectives. Secondly, it provides empirical evidence from the perspective of small and micro enterprises in China to support the theories of risk-sharing. At present, there is still a lack of robust empirical evidence in academia on how to quantify the impact of the new “Government-bank-guarantee” model on investment in small and micro enterprises. This article finds that the risk sharing and compensation mechanism under the new “Government-bank-guarantee” model is conducive to promoting investment in small and micro enterprises, providing important micro evidence for the theory of risk sharing. Thirdly, this article provides new insights into how to further promote the development of small and micro enterprises from the perspectives of internal policy sharing ratios and inter policy linkage. This article finds that in the process of policy implementation, effectively increasing the guarantee risk sharing ratio of fiscal special funds can strengthen the investment incentive effect of the new “Government-bank-guarantee” model and promote the growth of small and micro enterprises; Moreover, in addition to the new “Government-bank-guarantee” model, financing system reform and tax reduction policies can be supplemented to reduce the comprehensive financing costs and operational burdens of small and micro enterprises, which is more conducive to improving their investment returns.

This paper examines the effect of credit derivatives on the financing costs of private enterprises in China using micro-level data on Credit Risk Mitigation Warrants (CRMWs). Motivated by the policy goal of alleviating private firms' financing constraints following the 2018 credit crunch, the Chinese government reintroduced credit derivatives as a credit enhancement instrument. We find that in the initial stage of policy implementation before 2020, CRMW issuance significantly reduced bond spreads for private firms, consistent with an insurance effect. However, this effect reversed after 2020, as CRMW issuance began to be interpreted as a negative signal of firm quality, thereby increasing financing costs—a phenomenon we refer to as the signaling effect.
To account for this shift, we develop a noisy signaling model embedded in an information asymmetry framework. The model captures the coexistence of two contrasting market equilibria: one in which high-quality firms use CRMWs to credibly signal their creditworthiness and reduce financing costs, and another where low-quality firms strategically adopt CRMWs to improve the likelihood of issuance and increase investor acceptance, causing investors to interpret CRMWs issuance as a signal of weaker credit quality and thereby increasing financing costs. Based on the theoretical model, we further find that the transition between these equilibria is plausibly driven by increased investor risk aversion under high levels of signal noise.
Empirically, we construct a matched sample of 1,171 private enterprise short-term and super short-term commercial papers issued between 2017 and 2023, combined with data of CRMWs. We then estimate a panel regression controlling for industry and time fixed effects. Our baseline results confirm the insurance effect before 2020 and the signaling effect after 2020. Further heterogeneity analyses reveal that the signaling effect is more pronounced among firms with lower financial transparency and when the insurance contract provided by CRMW is less credible.
We provide additional empirical evidence that investor risk aversion plays a key role in the observed effect reversal. By interacting CRMW issuance with both macroeconomic and bond market indicators of risk preference, we find that heightened risk aversion amplifies the signaling effect. When investor sentiment is optimistic, CRMWs help reduce financing costs; under pessimistic conditions, CRMWs might be perceived as signals of hightened default risk and lose its intended effect.
We further examine the manifestation of the insurance and the signaling effects across broader issuer types and financing contexts. While the ability of credit derivatives to lower financing costs has diminished in certain periods, they still significantly boost investor demand and improve issuance success rates, thus easing financing constraints for private firms. Moreover, post-2020 pricing inversion associated with CRMW issuance is also observed among state-owned enterprises and longer-term bonds, suggesting the existence of a broader pricing pattern for external credit enhancements in China's bond market.
This study contributes to the literature on credit derivatives and firm financing in three main ways. First, it provides micro-evidence of the time-varying roles of CRMWs in China's bond market. Second, by analyzing CRMW as a distinct external credit enhancement tool, it enriches the literature on the pricing of guarantees and insurance contracts in China's credit market, offering new evidence for risk assessment and bond pricing of private firms. Third, it advances signaling theory by incorporating both positive and negative effect of credit guarantees into a single framework. By introducing signal noise into a classic model, we explain the dual role of CRMWs under asymmetric information and identify an equilibrium shift driven by changes in investor risk preference.
These findings offer several policy implications. Regulators should improve market transparency and guide the proper interpretation of credit derivatives. Encouraging the participation of high-quality financial institutions in CRMW issuance may also mitigate negative signaling effects. Finally, developing a secondary market for credit derivatives and improving pricing mechanisms would facilitate better risk pricing and reinforce the role of credit derivatives in supporting private sector financing.

Existing literature primarily studies the homogeneous impact of standard implementation on enterprise innovation behavior based on the standard release time. However, enterprises succeed in the competition for standard-setting rights often voluntarily disclose their participation in standard formulation in the core competitiveness section of their annual reports, well before the official standard release time. In contrast, other enterprises in the same industry—those that did not participate in standard formulation, the de facto failed enterprises—are likely to make competitive responses upon learning of their rivals' involvement in the formulation of standards. Modern innovation economics holds that the feedback effect among standards, innovation and markets leave room for counterattack opportunities for enterprises that fail in standard competition. These failed enterprises can turn defeat into victory through high-quality innovation. Therefore, enterprises that fail in the competition for standard-setting rights may use high-quality innovation to counterattack successful enterprises, preventing them from being marginalized in the market or preparing them for victory in the next stage of competition through high-quality innovation.
This article identifies enterprises that publicly disclose information on participating in standard formulation as successful enterprises in the competition for standard formulation rights, that is, competitors, while identifying other enterprises in the industry as failed competitors. Based on the theory of standard competition, it explores how enterprises can cope with the failure of the competition for standard formulation rights by improving the quality of innovation. The research findings are as follows: (1) The innovation breakthrough degree of enterprises that fail in the competition for standard-setting rights is significantly positively correlated with that of successful enterprises. This conclusion still holds true after excluding the influence of the simple peer effect, the simple disclosure effect, and strategic information disclosure, indicating that failed enterprises actively respond to the failure in the competition for standard-setting rights by significantly improving the quality of innovation.(2) The competitive innovation response of enterprises mainly occurs in the group with more intense industry innovation competition, the group with weaker innovation capabilities of successful enterprises, and the group with stronger innovation capabilities of failed enterprises. This indicates that when industry innovation competition is intense, failed enterprises have stronger innovation capabilities, and successful enterprises have weaker innovation capabilities, Failed enterprises are more likely to significantly enhance the quality of their innovation to cope with the failure in the competition for the right to set standards. (3) When successful enterprises only participate in the formulation of standards —or are involved in the formulation of industry, local and enterprise-level standards, and the cumulative number of industry standards, the number of newly added standards and the degree of marketization of standards are higher, failed enterprises are more likely to significantly improve the quality of innovation to cope with the failure in the competition for the right to formulate standards. (4) The proactive response of failed enterprises has enhanced the strength of the real economy and reduced the risk of stock price crashes, indicating that the positive response of enterprises to the failure of the competition for the right to set standards in terms of innovation quality is conducive to their future long-term development.
There are two marginal contributions in this study. Existing literature focuses on how standards affect enterprise innovation, but fails to pay attention to the heterogeneous manifestations of the impact of standard implementation on the innovation behaviors of enterprises that do not participate in standard formulation and those that do. It also fails to explore based on the standard competition theory how enterprises adjust their innovation strategies to cope with the results of the previous competitive rounds. This article explores how enterprises that have not participated in standard setting can utilize high-quality innovation to make competitive responses to their competitors' participation in standard setting, which can make up for the above-mentioned deficiencies in such literature. Second, although existing literature focuses on the impact of innovation competition on enterprise innovation, it neglects the feedback dynamics between innovation, standards, and the product market. The failure of enterprises in the competition for the right to set standards is likely due to their failure in the innovation competition. The fundamental measure for enterprises to deal with the failure in the competition for the right to set standards is to improve the quality of innovation to gain an innovation competitive advantage. Therefore, this paper studies how enterprises adjust the quality of innovation to cope with the failure in the competition for standard-setting rights, which can make up for the above-mentioned deficiencies of such literature. In conclusion, the research in this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the relationship between standards and enterprise innovation from the perspective of standard competition.

The effective integration of diverse green finance instruments is central to China's green finance policy implementation, given the ongoing maturation of its multi-faceted green finance system. Understanding the distinct functional roles and mechanisms of these instruments is crucial for unlocking their synergistic potential in facilitating the low-carbon economic transition while mitigating the trade-off between decarbonization and economic growth.
This study systematically identifies the core characteristics and operational mechanisms of key green finance instruments, including green credit, green bonds, green funds, and green relending. We innovatively construct a Multiple Green Finance Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (MGF-DSGE) model, incorporating the eight specific green finance policy variables into the optimal decision-making frameworks of enterprises, banks, and government agencies. Based on the model and a detailed classification of corporate attributes, scale and financing channels, we simulate realistic capital flows and transaction patterns between enterprises and financial institutions by internalizing the intensity of different supporting policies, enabling a comprehensive investigation into the synergistic impacts of green finance policy combinations on low-carbon transformation.
The main findings are as follows. First, green finance policies exert a significantly positive effect on low-carbon economic transition. By directing capital towards green sectors through scale and funding tilt, these policies optimize the financing environment and capital allocation for clean enterprises. This occurs via lowering green credit and bond interest rates, while simultaneously constraining financing for traditional polluting enterprises. Second, green credit and green bonds primarily stimulate short-term market dynamism, rapidly expanding green financing volumes, but their effects diminish over time. Green funds promote long-term technological progress through fiscal leverage. The synergistic interaction of these four instrument types facilitates a smooth, low-carbon transition by balancing short-term financing needs with long-term structural adjustments. Third, analysis of policy combinations reveals that price-quantity strategies best balance green production levels, financing sustainability, and environmental benefits.
Based on these insights, the study proposes three key policy recommendations. (1) Promote the development of an integrated multi-instrument green finance synergy system. Fully leverage the synergistic effects and complementary functions of diverse green financial tools. Utilize structural tools such as green loans and re-lending to anchor the foundation of real-economy transformation through financing adjustments and liquidity support. Rely on market-based tools such as green bonds and funds to guide the greening of resource allocation through capital pricing and leverage. Together, these form an integrated, efficient, and synergistic low-carbon transition pathway. (2) Implement a tiered enterprise classification mechanism for better management. Establish a multi-dimensional evaluation system based on environmental performance, conduct dynamic assessments of corporate energy efficiency levels, economic benefits, and emission status, and form a differentiated grading management framework. Enable differentiated financing incentives for green firms, provide subsidies for technological upgrades and transitional financing arrangements to ease transition financing constraints. (3) Construct an adaptive framework for green finance policy combinations. In the short term, synergies between price-based and quantity-based tools should be prioritized to enlarge green investment scale by lowering costs and enhancing liquidity. In the long term, the integration of fiscal instruments with structural policies should be promoted, use funds to leverage social capital for green investment, supplemented by monetary policies to enable more precise resource allocation, ensuring a gradual and effective transition.
The primary contributions of this study lie in three aspects. First, this paper addresses a critical gap in existing research by systematically analyzing the synergistic effects of multiple green finance instruments. While achieving low-carbon development requires coordinated policy mixes, prior studies have predominantly examined single tools in isolation, neglecting the interactive mechanisms that define real-world policy implementation. We develop a new MGF-DSGE model that integrates core features and function mechanisms of four instruments with parameter of intervention intensities of eight incentive policies, which overcomes the compatibility challenges of modeling heterogeneous tools in traditional approaches by embedding cross-sector behavioral equations and transmission pathways. This enables a unified assessment of how interdependent policy levers jointly reshape corporate financing decisions and long-term transition dynamics and provides a new theoretic structure. Second, the study advances the literature by incorporating firm heterogeneity into the dynamic analysis of the asymmetric effectiveness of diversified green finance policies. Grounded in practical contexts, we differentiate firms by environmental performance, size, and financing channels. By modeling asymmetric access to credit instruments, bond markets, and government-led green funds, we capture real-world financing structures more accurately. This approach reveals how policies dynamically generate green premiums and crowding-out effects. Third, we pioneer a quantitative framework to disentangle standalone versus synergistic policy impacts. The MGF-DSGE model decomposes the marginal effects of all eight policy variables on transition outcomes, identifying their distinct temporal roles. By testing policy combinations, we demonstrate that price-quantity hybrid strategies optimally balance green productivity, financial sustainability, and emissions reduction. Beyond green finance, our analytical framework offers a transferable paradigm for evaluating multi-policy synergies in other domains.

While Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations have gained prominence in global financial markets, persistent information asymmetries continue to impede efficient ESG pricing, particularly in emerging bond markets where institutional infrastructure remains underdeveloped. Traditional ESG information channels—corporate disclosures, regulatory filings, and third-party ratings—often suffer from limited timeliness, reliability concerns, and strategic reporting biases. These limitations create substantial information gaps that may distort investment decisions, elevate financing costs, and hinder optimal capital allocation toward sustainable projects. Understanding the information transmission mechanisms of ESG, becomes crucial for enhancing market efficiency and advancing sustainable finance development.
We investigate how media ESG reporting sentiment affects corporate bond risk premium through its information transmission role. Using 1,970 corporate bonds issued by 512 Chinese listed companies from 2009 to 2022, we analyze how media coverage shapes investor risk perception and bond pricing, distinguishing between fundamental risk changes and sentiment adjustments. We employ an innovative forward intensity approach developed by the Credit Research Initiative (CRI) to decompose credit spreads into default risk and excess risk premium components, providing more precise measurements than traditional approaches. Our empirical strategy addresses endogeneity concerns through an instrumental variable approach based on geographic proximity between firms and county-level integrated media centers.
We find that positive media ESG sentiment significantly reduces bond credit spreads—a one standard deviation improvement corresponds to a 3.44% decrease in spreads relative to the sample mean. Importantly, spread decomposition reveals this effect operates primarily through the excess risk premium channel rather than fundamental default probability, indicating that media sentiment influences investor expectations and risk perceptions rather than directly altering firm fundamentals.
Media ESG sentiment exerts stronger influence when traditional information intermediaries' function inadequately—specifically, when firms exhibit weak disclosure practices, limited analyst coverage, low institutional ownership, or poor audit quality. The effect intensifies during periods of heightened market uncertainty, including episodes of elevated economic policy uncertainty, concentrated credit market stress, frequent safety incidents, or deteriorating market confidence, when investors actively seek additional signals about firm stability. Further analysis reveals that positive media ESG sentiment enhances ESG-focused investors' asset allocation decisions, while consecutive negative media coverage significantly increases corporate credit spreads.
This research contributes by introducing precise credit spread decomposition methods, developing a comprehensive information coordination framework, and demonstrating that media ESG sentiment influences bond pricing through investor expectations rather than fundamental risk changes. Our findings provide crucial policy implications for China's green finance development, suggesting that regulators should strengthen media's role in ESG information dissemination while encouraging companies to diversify disclosure channels beyond traditional periodic reporting. These findings underscore the need to integrate green finance policies with ESG frameworks, enabling effective alignment between ESG evaluation systems and green financial instruments to enhance sustainable capital allocation.

Industrial policy has long been a crucial element of China's economic regulatory framework, guiding the optimal allocation of resources across industries and promoting sustainable economic development. The bond market, as a core component of the capital market, plays a vital role in connecting the supply and demand for funds in response to industrial policy objectives. As the market continues to expand, the Chinese bond market has become increasingly prominent in the economic system.
However, a persistent challenge in the bond primary market is the phenomenon of issuance overpricing, where the price of bonds in the secondary market on their first day of trading is often significantly lower than the initial offering price. This phenomenon mainly stems from non-market behaviors by issuers and underwriters who artificially lower interest rates. As the demand side of capital, firms typically aim to issue bonds at the lowest possible cost. However, investors' concerns about risks or unmet pricing expectations often compel issuers to adopt non-market strategies, such as offering artificially low interest rates, to attract investors and secure successful issuance. Underwriters, in their pursuit of market share, may also cater to the low-interest-rate preferences of high-quality bond issuers through fee rebates and self-purchase. These non-market behaviors result in issuance overpricing and undermine the efficiency of bond issuance. They distort price discovery, hamper effective resource allocation, and pose significant challenges to the stable and high-quality development of the bond market. Therefore, addressing the issuance overpricing and enhancing the alignment between primary and secondary market prices is essential for achieving the bond market's high-quality development. This paper explores the impact of industrial policy on the pricing efficiency of corporate bonds issuance and its underlying mechanisms from the perspective of government macroeconomic regulation.
Using a sample of credit bonds issued by non-financial firms from 2011 to 2020, this study finds that industrial policy decreases the issuance overpricing and improves pricing efficiency. The primary mechanism involves reducing credit and information risks faced by issuers, thereby discouraging artificially lowered coupon rates. However, underwriters' competitive incentives to secure issuance business undermine the policy's effectiveness. Heterogeneity tests reveal that the impact of industrial policy on pricing efficiency is more pronounced for bonds issued by non-state-owned firms and for long-term bonds, and when economic policy certainty is high and monetary policy is loose. Further analysis reveals that industrial policy also promotes subscription by primary market investors and enhances liquidity of bonds after listing.
This research contributes to the literature in three ways. First, it enriches research on industrial policy and capital market asset pricing, a field that has predominantly focused on stock markets while paying relatively little attention to bond markets. Within the context of the issuance overpricing phenomenon, this study highlights the impact of industrial policy on pricing efficiency and the rationality of asset prices, offering valuable insights into the effectiveness of industrial policy implementation. Second, it offers new theoretical insights and empirical evidence for debates on the role of industrial policy, underscoring its positive impact on pricing efficiency of corporate bonds. Third, it reveals how government actions reshape the motivations of bond market participants, opening new avenues for improving pricing efficiency and posing significant research potential for promoting the stability and prosperous development of the bond market.
This research offers important policy implications: First, when formulating industrial policies, the government should account not only for their impact on the real economy but also for their effects on the bond market, fostering a positive interaction between industry and capital markets. Second, the fundamental driver of the issuance overpricing lies in issuers' desire to raise funds at low interest rates. Policymakers should enhance disclosure requirements for firms to improve market recognition, while also strengthen regulations to curb non-market-oriented practices and raise the cost associated with rate manipulation. Finally, the coordination of industrial policy with other macroeconomic measures, such as policy certainty and monetary policy, is essential for improving bond pricing efficiency. Future research can explore the synergistic effects of other policies and offer theoretical insights for more effective macroeconomic policy coordination. Additionally, factors such as issuers' development stages, the credit rating agencies, and investor behavior warrant further exploration.

During the bond issuance process, intermediaries play an irreplaceable and significant role in addressing information asymmetry and reducing transaction costs. Meanwhile, their behavior has also affected the healthy and orderly development of the bond market. Since the implementation of the registration system for public issuance of corporate bonds in China on March 1, 2020, regulatory authorities have placed greater emphasis on the behavior of intermediaries, emphasizing the improvement of their professional quality and clarifying the division of responsibilities among intermediaries. Intermediaries are precisely the important link in maintaining the order of the financial market.
This paper focuses on the fixed collocation of intermediaries in China's bond market. It selects all corporate bonds, enterprise bonds and medium-term notes issued in China's exchange market and inter-bank market from 2008 to 2022 as the research objects, and explores in detail how the stable partnerships between credit rating agencies and accounting firms impact bond credit ratings. Empirical research has found that consistent with the more frequently a credit rating agency and an accounting firm collaborate, the lower the bond credit rating tends to be. Moreover, this conclusion still exists after controlling for endogeneity and conducting a series of robustness tests. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that when credit rating agencies have foreign capital backgrounds, the influence of the fixed collocations of intermediaries on bond credit ratings diminishes. Conversely, when accounting firms are among the international "Big 4", the impact of the fixed collocation of intermediaries on bond credit ratings is enhanced. Further research indicates that the greater fixed collocation between credit rating agencies and accounting firms, the higher information content in bond credit ratings, the fewer rating errors in bond credit ratings.
The theoretical and policy contributions of this research are as follows. First, it enriches the literature on the bond rating behavior of credit rating agencies. Different from the existing literature, this paper focuses on how the fixed collocation of bond market intermediaries affects the bond rating behavior of credit rating agencies, and proves that the fixed collocation of credit rating agencies and accounting firms is based on the cooperative effect theory, positively influence the bond rating behavior of credit rating agencies. Second, it has expanded the research on the consequences of the fixed allocation behavior of intermediaries in the capital market. This article, based on the Chinese bond market, elaborately explores the impact and consequences of the fixed collocation of credit rating agencies and accounting firms on bond credit ratings, which is conducive to revealing the crucial roles those intermediaries play in the bond market. Third, the research conclusions of this paper have significant implications for bond market intermediaries and regulatory authorities. For bond market intermediaries such as credit rating agencies and accounting firms, they should fully utilize the information advantages brought by intermediary cooperative relationships, optimize information communication channels, reduce transaction costs, improve service quality, and provide more genuine and effective decision-making references for bond market participants. For regulatory authorities, it is appropriate to encourage long-term cooperation between credit rating agencies and accounting firms,while also strengthen the supervision of intermediaries' behavior,in orderto enhance the quality of bond credit ratings and alleviate the long-standing phenomenon of credit rating inflation in China's bond market.

The effective functioning of capital markets hinges on the interplay between public and private enforcement mechanisms. In China, the regulatory framework is transitioning from a government-dominated public enforcement regime to a more diversified, multi-stakeholder governance system. Under this evolving structure, administrative sanctions by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and disclosure oversight by stock exchanges form the core of public enforcement, while shareholder litigation has emerged as a key channel for private enforcement, complementing public regulation and reinforcing market discipline.
In recent years, shareholder litigation has gained increasing prominence in China's capital markets. As legal reforms accelerate, the volume of shareholder lawsuits has risen steadily, highlighting their potential role in promoting corporate transparency and accountability. However, due to a late start, limited institutional and practical maturity, private enforcement mechanisms remain relatively underdeveloped. Challenges such as the low frequency of lawsuits, ambiguous boundaries of liability, and a mismatch between litigation costs and expected compensation persist. These institutional limitations raise concerns that the actual enforcement effect of shareholder litigation may fall short of policy expectations. In this context, this paper adopts the perspective of “spillover effects” to systematically assess the external impact of shareholder litigation on the information disclosure behavior of other listed firms within the same industry, in order to evaluate its judicial deterrence and external governance effectiveness.
We construct a novel hand-collected dataset of shareholder lawsuits involving A-share listed companies from 2006 to 2021 and employ a BERT-based financial large language model to conduct semantic analysis of annual report narratives. The analysis focuses on whether, and how, non-targeted peer firms strategically adjust the text content of their disclosures in response to litigation filed against other firms in the same industry.
Our empirical findings show that peer firms significantly increase the positivity of narrative tone and reduce the disclosure of risk-related information in their annual reports following lawsuits in the industry. These effects are more pronounced when the litigation involves higher monetary claims or more plaintiffs. Strategic disclosure adjustments are particularly evident among firms with weak investor protection, heightened retail investor attention, and greater market pressure and volatility. In contrast, stronger monitoring by institutional investors tends to mitigate such behavior. Notably, this spillover effect is concentrated among firms with lower disclosure quality. We also observe that peer firms exhibit a significantly lower probability of issuing voluntary earnings forecasts and reduced readability in their annual reports. Further evidence suggests that while such strategic disclosure can lower the likelihood of being sued in the short term, it significantly undermines the information content of stock prices. These findings suggest that shareholder litigation exerts industry-level deterrent effects but may also induce unintended consequences such as defensive and potentially misleading disclosure practices.
This study offers three main contributions. First, it provides new empirical evidence on the economic consequences of shareholder litigation in the Chinese institutional context, addressing the lack of systematic research on private enforcement in emerging markets. Second, it enhances methodological approaches in disclosure research by applying a BERT-based language model that is capable of capturing nuanced semantic shifts in corporate narratives—beyond what traditional dictionary-based methods can detect. Third, the findings yield policy implications for regulatory design. Policymakers should lower barriers for minority shareholders to seek legal recourse, enhance the enforceability and accountability of narrative disclosure rules, and improve investor education to increase market participants' ability to interpret corporate disclosure. A balanced and coordinated integration of public and private enforcement mechanisms is essential for building a transparent, resilient, and high-quality capital market.