Most Popular

Bond for Employment: Evidence from China

Yi Huang, Shu Lin, Haichun Ye, Feb 15, 2023

Using the unique institutional feature of government regulations in China, we provide robust evidence that firms with a larger employment size have significantly better access to bond credit.

Homemade Foreign Trading

Zhiguo He, Yuehan Wang, Xiaoquan Zhu, Jul 26, 2023

Our recent study provides evidence that Chinese mainland insiders tend to evade see-through surveillance by round-tripping via the Stock Connect program.

Good Finance, Bad Finance, and Resource Misallocation: Evidence from China

Jiapin Deng, Qiao Liu, Apr 03, 2024

The development of finance driven by Chinese local governments exacerbates the problem of resource misallocation, whereas market-driven finance significantly improves allocative efficiency. This highlights the policy implication that modern finance in China should prioritize the efficient utilization of resources rather than mere expansion in scale.

Government-Directed Urban Growth, Firm Entry, and Industrial Land Prices in Chinese Cities

Jan K. Brueckner, Wenhua Liu, Wei Xiao, Junfu Zhang, May 17, 2023

We examine the effect of large-scale administrative reorganization in China, where counties are annexed into cities to accommodate urban growth.

Overpricing in Municipal Bond Markets and the Unintended Consequences of Regulatory Measures: Evidence from China

Laura Xiaolei Liu, Qiao Liu, Xiaoyu Liu, Ni Zhu, Dec 03, 2024

Chinese municipal bonds are considerably overpriced in the primary market, leading regulators to set a lower bound on the issuance yield spread. This paper investigates the underlying reasons for this overpricing and evaluates the effects of implementing restrictions on yield spreads. Our findings indicate that underwriters may inflate prices to receive undisclosed benefits from local governments, such as local treasury cash deposits. We further show that the lower bounds severely impede price discovery in the primary municipal bond market. Even bonds not restricted by the lower limit are priced at the reference spread, exacerbating overpricing of riskier bonds. Local governments exploit these fixed prices by increasing the bond issuance amount and extending bond maturity. Our findings suggest that regulatory interference in pricing can have unintended consequences for pricing efficiency and that attempts to rectify mispricing may result in even more severe mispricing.