The conventional wisdom is that state ownership may hinder patenting through reduced incentives and pronounced agency problems associated with state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Empirical evidence from a variety of contexts, including the U.S., Europe, and China, is consistent with this view, that...

We examine the immediate effects and bounce-back from six modern health crises: 1968 Flu, SARS (2003), H1N1 (2009), MERS (2012), Ebola (2014), and Zika (2016). Time-series models for a large cross-section of countries indicate that real GDP growth falls by around three percentage points in...

We investigate informal financing such as trade credit in China. The credit for both state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-SOEs dramatically increased over time. Our results suggest that non-SOEs rely more on trade credit financing, but this effect is mitigated by supplier's liquidity position....

We examine the impact of political influence and ownership on corporate investment by exploiting the unique way provincial leaders are promoted in China. The tournament-style promotion system creates incentives for new governors to exert influence over investment in the early years of their...

We study how political power affects resource allocation for knowledge production dictated by central planning in a non-market system in China. Our empirical results suggest that scholar with political privilege is associated with 15.7% more allocation granted by the National Natural Science...

This paper documents that site visits as a type of soft activism, increase corporate cashdividend in the post-event year. The casual link is built by using both quasi-naturalexperiment and instrument variable approach. Site visits facilitate communicationamong outside investors and incumbent...

This paper studies the monitoring role of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). By using unique dataset from one of the largest SWF: Temasek holdings, we find that SWF's presence has a positive effect on cash holdings of portfolio companies. The effect is more pronounced for well-governed firms,...

We document the effect on Chinese firms of the Shanghai (Shenzhen)-Hong Kong Stock Connect. The Connect was an important capital account liberalization introduced in the mid-2010s. It created a channel for cross-border equity investments into a selected set of Chinese stocks while China's...

We document a cross-border peer effect in corporate investment across two key economies, China and the US. Results show that investment by Chinese firms lags US peers without feedback in the other direction. This association is stronger for Chinese firms in manufacturing, with innovative US...

We document the effect on Chinese firms of the Shanghai (Shenzhen)-Hong Kong Stock Connect. The Connect was an important capital account liberalization introduced in the mid-2010s. It created a channel for cross-border equity investments into a selected set of Chinese stocks while China’s...