Abstract:This research reviews recent theoretical advances and practical experiences related to antitrust regulation in the platform economy, with the aim of providing insights for developing a scientifically sound and effective regulatory system. This paper first examines the regulatory trends among the world’s major antitrust authorities, revealing that the general trend is to strengthen the supervision of large digital platforms, improve regulatory policies, and consolidate enforcement capabilities. Second, we discuss the challenges that platform antitrust issues pose to the traditional analytical framework and tools of antitrust economics, as well as alternative approaches that have recently emerged based on the fundamental characteristics and business strategies of digital platforms. Finally, using economic analyses in Epic Games v. Apple as an example, the paper further explains the difficulty of applying the traditional analytical framework to platform antitrust issues and discusses policy implications.

Abstract:Information asymmetry between the government and firms in the carbon market hinders firms from achieving sustainable emission reductions, thereby undermining carbon market efficiency and stability. This paper develops an intertemporal carbon market Stackelberg game model between the government and the firms. Scenarios of the benchmark, the carbon price floor adjustment, the carbon price ceiling adjustment, and the carbon price collars adjustment are constructed. The optimal carbon permit cap is then derived. The impacts of carbon price regulation on carbon market efficiency and stability are explored theoretically and numerically by analyzing a sample of 458 power plants in China’s national carbon market. The results reveal that carbon price regulation significantly affects carbon permit cap setting, market efficiency and stability. The carbon permit allocation ceiling and carbon price collars are critical factors influencing carbon market efficiency and stability. When the carbon permit allocation ceiling exceeds the carbon permit threshold floor, and the carbon price floor is greater than the benchmark carbon price threshold but lower than the carbon price threshold floor, carbon price floor and collars adjustments help raise the carbon price. However, these adjustments reduce carbon market stability and aggravate social carbon emission abatement costs. When the carbon permit allocation ceiling exceeds the carbon permit threshold ceiling and the carbon price ceiling is less than the benchmark carbon price threshold, both carbon price ceiling and collars adjustments help prevent a sharp rise in carbon price and increase market stability, but they do not decrease social carbon emission abatement costs. This paper provides theoretical support and policy implications for the construction of an intertemporal carbon market to ensure its effective and stable operation.

Abstract:The uncertainty of renewable energy development in China has been exacerbated by institutional reforms including electricity marketization, the removal of subsidies for renewable power, and carbon emissions trading. This study analyses the investment decision of renewable energy when renewable and fossil power are connected at grid parity and in competition and discusses how intensity-based carbon trading and the intermittency of renewables affect energy investment and CO2 emissions. Meanwhile, using data from China’s electricity and carbon markets, it verifies the theoretical results with numerical simulations and estimates the scope for the further increase of the carbon price from the perspective of marginal abatement cost. The results suggest that: 1) Carbon trading does not provide a direct incentive for renewable energy investment in the grid-parity scenario, and its impact on fossil energy depends on the magnitude of the emission intensity of fossil power relative to its benchmark emission rate. 2) Under market competition, the lower the benchmark emission rate of fossil power, the more significant the incentive (disincentive) effect of carbon trading on renewable (fossil) energy investment. 3) Renewable energy investment under market competition is lower than the case at grid parity. However, reasonable carbon pricing under market competition can achieve a low-carbon transition of the power system. The research in this paper can provide a useful reference for the energy structure transition and the synergistic development of the electricity-carbon market.

Abstract:This paper examines the impact of local governments’explicit constraints of environmental targets on enterprises’green governance and green transformation. The disclosure of environmental targets in the government work report is used to measure local governments’explicit constraint on environmental protection, and green investments and green patents are used to measure enterprises’green development. Results show that enterprises significantly increase the level of green investment when local governments explicitly reveal their environmental targets. The mechanism analysis finds that local governments provide more green subsidies and strengthen environmental regulation after they reveal environmental targets, which are two important mechanisms that encourage local enterprises to increase green investment. Further, the above positive relationship is more salient when higher-level governments place greater emphasis on environmental protection, when the public has a stronger environmental awareness, when local governments face lower economic growth pressure, and when the firms are local state-owned enterprises. Finally, after local governments explicitly reveal their environmental targets, the local enterprises’environmental violations significantly decrease, their green innovation significantly increases, and the overall regional pollution level also significantly decreases. Overall, our paper suggests that the explicit environmental targets of local governments convey local government’s willingness and determination to implement environmental governance to the market, which reduces the uncertainty of local environmental policies, helps promote enterprises’green governance and transformation, and ultimately contributes to high-quality economic development in China.

Abstract:Carbon emission trading markets (CETMs) play a crucial role in the “dual-carbon” goals of achieving carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. Liquidity and price discovery are the two fundamental microstructural measures of the functioning of CETMs. Using daily trading data from four carbon emission trading (CET) pilot markets: Beijing, Shanghai, Hubei, and Guangdong: From 2013 to 2021, this paper empirically examines the impact of institutional investors on market liquidity and price discovery. Our findings demonstrate that institutional investors significantly enhance liquidity and strengthen the price discovery function of these CET pilots. This conclusion remains robust after addressing potential endogeneity issues through instrumental variable methods and conducting robustness checks. Mechanism analysis shows that institutional investors play dual roles in carbon markets: As intermediaries, they enhance market liquidity by boosting trading activity; As informed traders,they accelerate the incorporation of new information into carbon prices, reduce effective price dispersion, and thus strengthen price discovery. These findings carry important policy implications for the development of a national CETM and offer practical guidance for investors, carbon emission regulated enterprises and policymakers to better navigate and utilize CETMs.

Abstract:Unfair low-price competition hinders the provision of high-quality audit services and impairs the sustainable and healthy development of the audit industry. This paper constructs a quasi-natural experiment based on the institutional change in audit fees regulation in China from 2008 to 2019. It compares audit opinion shopping across the pre-implementation, implementation, and post-implementation periods of audit fee regulation, and then uses the difference-in-difference approach to examine the impacts of audit fees regulation on audit opinion shopping. Our findings reveal that, compared with the implementation-period of audit fees regulation, the likelihood of audit opinion shopping is significantly higher in both the pre-implementation and the post-implementation periods, suggesting that audit fees regulation can mitigate audit opinion shopping to a certain extent. In addition, the mitigating effect of audit fees regulation on audit opinion shopping is more pronounced for firms audited by non-BIG10 audit firms. Furthermore, our findings are still robust after a variety of sensitivity tests and after controlling for potential endogeneity issues. Lastly, the negative association between audit fees regulation and audit opinion shopping is more pronounced for firms with strong audit industry supervision and firms in regions with lower marketization indexes. This study enriches the existing literature on audit fees regulation, providing an important reference for China’s audit policy-making.

Abstract:Improving the Chinese capital market requires better regulation, deeper reforms, and innovation. CSRC’s random inspection system represents a significant innovation in regulatory philosophy and approach, representing a profound transformation of the regulatory system. Liquidity is often regarded as the “vitality” of a capital market. This paper takes stock liquidity as an entry point to study how random supervision affects the capital market performance of listed companies. The findings indicate that random supervision generally results in a decrease in the stock liquidity of listed companies. However, effective internal corporate governance and external market supervision can significantly mitigate the negative impact of random supervision on stock liquidity. The channel tests demonstrate that random supervision ultimately reduces firms’ stock liquidity by exacerbating the uncertainty of firms and increasing information asymmetry among investors. The research conclusions offer valuable insights in deepening “deregulation and service” and “improving the function of the capital market”, both of which were highlighted by the Party’s 20th National Congress.

Abstract:The trade-off theory implies that firms have target levels of tax burden and will adjust when the current levels of tax burden deviate from the target. Research on the determinants of the dynamic adjustment of tax burden has only recently begun and still remains a “black box”, requiring further in-depth research. Since tax compliance involves a strategic interaction between firms and tax authorities, tax enforcement will undoubtedly affect the adjustment of firms towards their target tax burdens. In view of this, this paper uses A-share listed firms from 2003 to 2019 to construct the research sample and examine the impact of tax enforcement on the speed at which firms adjust towards their target tax burdens. The test results show that the higher the level of tax enforcement, the slower the adjustment speed toward the target tax burdens, indicating that tax enforcement has an inhibitory effect on firms’ tax burden adjustment. Under various robustness tests, the conclusions remain unchanged. Further analyses show that tax enforcement restrains the speed of tax burden adjustment through two channels: Reducing firms’motivation for tax burden adjustment and increasing the costs of implementing tax adjustment activities. The impact of tax enforcement on the dynamic adjustment of tax burden is asymmetric. Compared with upward adjustments of the tax burden level (increasing to the target value), the impact of tax enforcement on the downward adjustment of the tax burden level (reducing to the target value) is more significant. The results of heterogeneity analysis show that the inhibitory effect of tax enforcement on the speed of adjustment toward the target tax burden is more obvious in firms with higher agency costs, more media attention, and lower level of product market competition. This paper not only sheds light on the determinants of the speed at which firms adjust their tax burdens but also addresses the insufficiencies of the existing literature. Furthermore, it investigates the influence of tax enforcement activities of the tax authorities on firms’ tax management behavior from a dynamic perspective, providing a comprehensive understanding of how tax enforcement affects firms’ behavior.

Abstract:This study investigates information spillover mechanisms in China’s stock market under market shocks through constructing limit order book (LOB) networks. A methodological framework is developed that extracts informative variables from dynamically evolving LOB data, employs a high-dimensional vector autoregressive (VAR) model with post-double-selection LASSO regularization for Granger causality testing, and implements bootstrapping techniques to compute generalized forecast error variance decompositions. Four principal findings emerge from our empirical analysis. First, LOB networks demonstrate superior descriptive capabilities over conventional price networks by incorporating critical market microstructure variables, thereby enabling precise identification of information spillover mechanisms during market shocks. Second, the spillover dynamics exhibit complex network structures comprising both own-impact paths and significant cross impact paths. The coexistence of these mechanisms reveals that while information predominantly circulates within individual stocks, substantial cross market spillovers occur through key bridging nodes, collectively reflecting the market’s intrinsic correlation structure. Third, regulatory constraints on short selling induce notable bid-ask asymmetries in information diffusion, with predominant spillover directions originating from informationally advantaged traders to retail participants via bid-side order flows. Fourth, intensified herding behavior and overreaction patterns are observed in spillover dynamics during market downturns.

Abstract:The credit rating industry has played a pioneering role in the broader opening of Chinese financial markets in recent years, but its fairness and consistency have been frequently doubted. This research studies rating consistency across Chinese credit rating agencies and discusses its underlying mechanism, motivation, and impacts. The results show that bonds with identical ratings given by different agencies differ in credit risk, with significant differences in issuance spreads, default rates, yield spreads, yield volatility, and probabilities of rating adjustments after issuance. However, given observable characteristics, ratings do not vary across agencies. This indicates that the rating inconsistency across agencies is a separating equilibrium under information asymmetry: Issuers with similar observable characteristics but differing credit risk choose different rating agencies, so that their choice of rating agencies consequently signals the bonds’ unobservable risk. Moreover, it is shown that the threshold rating requirements set by regulations motivate the rating inconsistency, which enables ineligible firms to obtain inflated ratings from aggressive agencies and thus successfully access bond markets. Using propensity score matching and Heckman two-stage approach to address endogeneity, further analysis reveals that this rating-inflated financing for regulatory arbitrage does not result in subsequent outperformance by bond issuers.

Abstract:Identifying the credit risk of borrowers residing in lower-tier cities and rural areas remains a critical challenge for commercial banks to improve inclusive finance. Based on the data of an online lending platform affiliated with a commercial bank in Hunan Province, this study evaluates the information content of relationship score and its impact on the credit risk assessment. Empirical results demonstrate that relational information significantly enhances the accuracy of credit risk assessments for borrowers located in lower-tier cities and rural areas, and this effect operates primarily through a constraint mechanism. At the same time, relational information enhances the information content of credit risk assessment by mitigating gaps in traditional credit data and revealing borrowers risk preferences. This study reveals the influence mechanism and operational pathways of bank relational information in the context of “inclusive finance+digital finance”, which provides support for advancing high-quality development in Chinese financial sector.