After the international financial crisis in 2008 the problem of consumers' lacking financial literacy and its serious consequences have attracted the attention of policymakers around the world. In recent years, there is a growing interest on consumer financial literacy and financial education in the literature. This paper discusses the existing consumer finance literacy theory and measurement methods, and with the nationwide collection of consumer financial literacy survey data, builds consumer financial literacy index using method of factor analysis. We pointed out that China's consumer financial literacy is at a moderate level. In addition, through the multiple linear regression analysis of the impact of financial literacy factors, we found that the education level, income, occupation, age and geographical were significantly related to consumer financial literacy score. And on this basis, we put forward the corresponding policy recommendations: first, we must actively promote the integration of financial knowledge into the national education system, the second is to design targeted financial literacy promoting programs based on different characteristics of specific financial consumer group, the third is to pay attention to the region differences, considering strengthening the policy tilt and efforts to areas where people have the lowest level of financial literacy.

Financial Condition Index provides the empirical evidence for the perspective monetary policy and financial risk warning. Based on the quarterly GDP and other monthly observations, this paper constructs the mixed frequency FCI model to measure the Chinese FCI and investigate its kisk warning function. We find that: first, the mixed frequency models have the better results than that of same frequency model. Real estate price and GDP are major driving factors of FCI. Second, the FCI is pro-cyclical. It has more closely relation with economic climate leading index. However, the correlation between FCI and consistent index is stronger in recession period. Third, the FCI is the leading factor of consistent index according to Granger causality. It shows warning function to the fluctuation of future macro fundamental. Moreover, The FCI can also improve the forecast accuracy of economic climate index. Fourth, when using the proxy variables of stock market and monetary policy, we also obtain the similar measure results. It means the robustness of the above findings.

Based on measuring the financial cycle and 12 categories industries technology investment cycles, and analyzing the financial cycle effects on different industries, this paper draws the following conclusions. The financial variables cycles are asynchronous, and the different industry's technology investment cycle has a significant difference. Different financial variable has different quantitative relationship with different industry technology investment. In the prosperity stage, financial market and banks all play a positive role on the technology innovation, but financial market' promoting effect on the high-density innovation industries' technology investment is more significant, and banks' pushing effect on the low-density innovation industries' technology investment is more obvious. In the tightening stage, financial market' inhibitory effect on the high-density innovation industries' technology investment is more severe, and banks may smooth the fluctuation of low-density innovation industries' technology investment. The policy implications are that actions should be taken to guide the financial capital to flow into technical innovation enterprises so as to optimize the economic structure.

A series of financial crises have shown that although moderate leverage can promote economic development, over-leverage often causes asset price bubbles and systemic risks, resulting in considerable negative impacts on the financial sector and the real economy. This paper constructs a leverage-based asset price bubble model, revealing the inherent logical relationship between leverage and asset price bubbles. With the stock price bubble and housing price bubble representing the asset price bubble, we use the quantile method to study the non-linearity and asymmetric effect of leverage on the asset price bubble from the four dimensions of macro leverage, financial-sector leverage, non-financial-sector leverage and government leverage. The results show that the impact of leverage on asset price bubbles changes in size and direction with different periods of economic development, the degree of bubble evolution and the level of leverage, even if the same level of leverage has different effects on asset price bubble in different stages of bubble. Therefore, the relevant regulatory authorities need to combine the impact mechanism of leverage on the asset price bubble and distinguish the degrees of the bubble to optimize the leverage structure and maintain a reasonable leverage. This helps to avoid a systemic financial risk caused by asset price bubbles.

Based on the firm-level data and custom's transaction level data from 2000 to 2006, this paper investigates the impact of RMB real effective exchange rate movement on product quality of Chinese manufacturing enterprises. We find that the appreciation of RMB exchange rate will improve the average product quality. Quality improvement is significant for non-processing exporters but not for processing exporters. Besides, by dividing exporters into three categories-incumbents, entrants and dropouts, we find that the group of incumbents is the major contributor to the quality improvement. And we also note that firm's entry and exit play an important role in quality improvement. Finally, we find that against the backdrop of RMB exchange rate appreciation, the probability of market exit of products with lower quality is higher than that of products with higher quality. This effect is significant for non-processing exporters but not for processing exporters.

Based on the Chinese A-Share Listed Companies quarterly data and the change rate of local government officials in 31 province-level regions from 2003 to 2013, this paper studies the impact of policy uncertainty on corporate financing and investment by using the change rate of local government officials as the proxy of policy uncertainty. We find that policy uncertainty is strongly negatively related to debt financing, but not to equity financing. There exist two channels through which the policy uncertainty effects the corporate investment. Policy uncertainty cuts investment 1) directly by reducing financing; 2) indirectly by reducing the coefficient of financing on investment. The later means that, the higher policy uncertainty, the smaller positive coefficient of debt and equity financing on investment. Further study finds that the indirect channel significantly exists among policy closely related companies, such as the state-owned and the big companies, but not significantly exists among others. Financing availability is one of the most important preconditions that economic policy uncertainty effects investment. During the period of high financing availability, economic policy uncertainty significantly lower corporate investment, but not that significantly during the period of low financing availability. So, reducing policy uncertainty and strengthening the long-term system construction play an important role in keeping steady economy growth.

This paper explores the relationship between banking competition and financial stability. Based on a Spatial Competition Model, we investigate entrepreneurs' risk-taking behaviors in a game with banking competition. It shows that banking competition decreases the equilibrium loan interest rate, reduces entrepreneurs' risk-taking choices, and thus enhances financial stability. From the perspective of social welfare, banking competition may hurt banks' profitability, but it significantly increases depositors' and entrepreneurs' expected payoffs, and thus enhances social welfare. In consequence, an effective competition policy discourages the risk-taking behaviors of banks, and thus increases financial stability as well as market efficiency, resulting in a higher social welfare. The case with cost asymmetry is also addressed.

There is not enough attention paid to government actions in the literature on enterprises' product market competition. Using the regional differences in relative commodity prices to measure the market segmentation, and the proportion of non-local subsidiaries as a modifying factor to amend the regional influence of market segmentation, this paper shows that market segmentation boosts state-owned enterprises' especially local state-owned enterprises' competitive position in product market, this conclusion is robust but does not exist among private enterprises. These results show that market segmentation functions like a “helping hand”, which promotes especially local state-owned enterprises' competitive position. Further analysis reveals that market segmentation increases state-owned enterprises' long-term loan, and reduces firms' selling expenses, but then it is found that this “helping hand” also plays a role of “resource curse” in the long run, market segmentation is unfavorable for firm innovation. This paper expands and enriches the research on the product market competition, and provides a micro-explanation for market segmentation's long-term existence, which can help to understand the real function of market segmentation on state-owned enterprises and evaluate Chinese enterprises' competitive position more objectively.

This paper first examines the firm-level determinants and financial influence of raising foreign currency denominated debt for china by taking advantage of the currency structure of financial liabilities in 2013-2015 annual reports of CSI 800 Index companies. The results suggest that foreign exchange riskhedging and internationalization are the main determinants of foreign currency denominated debt. In addition, this paper first examines the relationship between foreign currency denominated debt and foreign exchange derivatives of Chinese listed companies, and confirms the complementary relationship. Further more, foreign currency denominated debt has lower interest rate, which may be offset by exchange loss with RMB depreciation. These findingshave some implicationson capital structure especially in the aspect of currency structurefor corporate financing and policy making under the background of deleverage.

The strict restrictions on IPO give rise to the shell value of the listed firm besides its intrinsic value. We investigate the impact of shell value on cross-sectional stock return. We find that high ESV/MV leads to high return, after controlling a variety of firm characteristics such as size, B/M, profitability, investment. Long-Short portfolio sort on ESV/MV earns a significant risk-adjusted abnormal return, which we call the shell premium. Further evidence prove that the shell premium comes from systematic risk related to IPO regulation rather than mispricing.

This paper examines the effect of CSI300 Index additions on stock price crash risk. To alleviate endogeneity concern, we use those stocks selected as backups for the stocks newly included in CSI300 Index as the control group and conduct a difference-in-differences analysis. We find that, compared to backup stocks, stocks newly added experience a significant increase in future stock price crash risk. Further analyses suggest that analyst optimistic forecast bias and coverage both play a partial mediating role in the crash effect of CSI300 Index additions. This study not only provides more insights about the determinants of stock price crash risk and the consequences of stock price index additions, but also offers reference for the regulatory authorities to strengthen the analyst supervision and improve the CSI300 index adjustment system.

Recently, the mass phenomenon of executive compensation in listed companies has drawn investors' and news media's intensive attention. Using a data set of 11,567 firm-year observations of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2003 to 2011, this study examines the impact of media coverage on the effectiveness of executive compensation contracts, and further explores potential differences of this impact in firms with different nature of property rights and located in regions with different institutional environment. The results show that (1) there is a positive and significant relationship between media coverage and executive pay-performance sensitivity, indicating that media coverage may increase the effectiveness of executive compensation contracts; (2) after differentiating firms' nature of property rights, the preceding positive effect of media coverage is found to only exist in state-owned enterprises, suggesting that media coverage could mainly increase the effectiveness of executive compensation contracts in state-owned enterprises; (3) high levels of institutional environment development significantly enhance the preceding positive effect of media coverage, implying that institutional environment is an important condition for media coverage performing the preceding effect.