It has been argued that the Chinese state sector is advancing at the cost of the private sector. Focusing on publicly listed firms which are divided into state- and private-controlled firms, we investigate preferential access to debt and effects on firm performance. Focusing on the large...

This paper investigates CEO incentives in Chinese state-controlled firms. We find that firm performance has a positive effect on CEO compensation. We also find that firm performance is positively associated with CEO promotion and negatively associated with CEO turnover. CEOs for state-controlled...

We study how Chinese private entrepreneurs benefit from participating in politics. Using original hand-collected data on listed firms controlled by private entrepreneurs, we document a significant positive relationship between political participation and change in firm performance. We also...

In March 2008, Malaysia’s political landscape was shaken by election results showing that the Barisan Nasional had won less than two thirds of the parliamentary seats and lost five states to the opposition. A two-thirds supermajority had been seen as a sacred threshold for the coalition to...

This study examines the stock-picking ability of mutual funds in China using evidence from the IPO market. We hypothesize that the decision to invest in the IPO market contains positive information about a fund’s underlying expectation of newly listed firms’ future prospects. Using residuals...

This paper analyzes the relationship between financial liberalization and urbanization. We conjecture that liberalizing financial policies enables the process of economic structural change and that this change results in an increased demand for labor in the predominantly urban service industry,...