Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Digital Wealth Management And Consumption: Micro Evidence From Individual Investments, Qian Gong, Mingyuan Ban, Yunjun Yu, Luying Wang, Yan Yuan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

With the rapid advancement of digital finance in China, accessing wealth management services through digital platforms has become considerably convenient. However, the potential impact of digital platform investments on residents' consumption remains a relatively unexplored question. This study addresses this gap by leveraging a unique dataset obtained from one of China's largest fintech companies, encompassing individual-level data on consumption and investment. Our findings indicate that engaging in digital platform investments can indeed stimulate residents' consumption. Importantly, participation in digital platform investment has an inclusive effect, with a more pronounced marginal impact on consumption among low-income residents and in-dividuals residing in …

Growing Up Under Mao And Deng: On The Ideological Determinants Of Corporate Policies, Hao Liang, Rong Wang, Haikun Zhu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Historically, economic activities have been organized around certain ideologies. We investigate the impact of politicians’ ideology on corporate policies by exploring a unique setting of ideological change—China from Mao to Deng around the 1978 economic reform—in a regression discontinuity framework. We find that the age discontinuity of politicians around 18 years old in 1978, who had already joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or joined soon thereafter and later became municipal paramount leaders, has had a lasting effect on contemporary firm- and city-level policies. In particular, firms in cities with mayors that joined the CCP under the ideological regime of …

Corporate Actions And The Manipulation Of Retail Investors In China: An Analysis Of Stock Splits, Sheridan Titman, Chi Shen Wei, Bin Zhao

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We identify a group of “suspicious” firms that use stock splits, perhaps along with other activities, to artificially inflate their share prices. Following the initiation of suspicious splits, share prices temporarily increase, and subsequently decline below their presplit levels. Using account level data from the Shanghai Stock Exchange, we find that small retail investors acquire shares in firms initiating suspicious splits, while more sophisticated investors accumulate positions before suspicious split announcements and sell in the postsplit period. We also find that insiders sell large blocks of shares and obtain loans using company stock as collateral around the initiation of suspicious …

Skbi Big 5 Survey 2022 August, Singapore Management University

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

The latest survey results on the largest five economies (Big5) were revised markedly relative to the prior release (pre-Russia-Ukraine conflict), generally indicating weaker growth and higher inflation coupled with incremental ambiguity on the policy front.

Sandwiched Between A Rock And A Hard Place?, Thomas Lam, David Fernandez

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

The policy gap between US and China is likely to be widening further, potentially raising and unevenly distributing the risks of negative spillovers for Asia and the rest of the world.

Skbi Big 5 Survey 2022 February, Singapore Management University

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

The latest survey results on the largest five economies (Big5), based on submissions prior to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, imply a more intricate growth, inflation and policy dynamic.

The Unknown Benefits Of Black Markets, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Research on the license plate market in China’s capital finds that black markets can potentially serve as an auction mechanism to redistribute limited resources to those in need

Skbi Big 5 Survey 2021 August, Singapore Management University

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

The latest survey results convey an upshift in growth projections of the five largest economies in aggregate accompanied by higher inflation, especially this year and to a lesser extent next year. The aggregate “Big5” median real GDP growth projections for 2021 and 2022 were raised to 6.7% (up in US, CN and EA but down in IN and JP) and 4.9% (all except US), respectively. The overall “Big5” median CPI inflation forecasts were nudged up to 2.6% (higher in US, IN and EA but lower in CN) and 2.4% (in US, IN and EA some), respectively, for this year and …

Skbi Big 5 Survey 2021 February, Singapore Management University

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

The latest survey results suggest that the five largest economies collectively is projected to snapback to almost 6% in 2021, a modest upgrade from the August median, following an unprecedented preliminary contraction of roughly 4% last year (in real GDP terms). The 2022 median growth forecast of slightly above 4.5%, while slower, is still respectable, outstripping its pre-COVID 10-year average pace by more than half a percentage point. The aggregate upgrade in 2021, however, obscures the lopsided nature and highly uneven contour of the ongoing recovery. The bulk of the upward revision to growth was mainly due to IN (to …

Skbi Big 5 Survey 2020 August, Singapore Management University

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

The COVID-19 pandemic led to whopping downward revisions to 2020 real GDP growth among the Big5 economies, on average greater than 7%-points (ranging from roughly 3.5%-points for China to more than 10%-points for India). The forecast revisions to headline inflation were less sizable and more uneven, perhaps because of the confluence of supply and demand influences. The 2021 median GDP forecast is expected to turn positive overall, with a balanced risk assessment for most of the Big5 (but a coin toss in IN and US), but the growth reversal is likely to be highly uneven. While China regains its prior …

China's Anti‐Corruption Campaign And Financial Reporting Quality, Ole-Kristian Hope, Heng Yue, Qinlin Zhong

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine the impact of China’s anti-corruption campaign on firm-level financial reporting quality (FRQ). As an important component of the anti-corruption campaign, in October 2013, “Rule 18” was issued to prohibit party and government officials from serving as directors for publicly listed firms. The regulation led to a large number of official directors resigning from their roles as directors involuntarily. As such, Rule 18 has effectively weakened, if not fullydiscontinued, the political connections of the firms that previously hired officials as directors. Our empirical analyses employ a difference-in-differences research design with firm fixed effects and PSM to examine the pre- …

The Equifax Hack Revisited And Repurposed, Hal Berghel

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Reports on the recent indictments against Chinese hackers regarding Equifax.

The Power Of Investing To Alleviate Poverty, Zachary Sicher

Senior Honors Theses

Hundreds of millions of people across the world are affected by extreme poverty each day. At the same time, investing has generated more wealth than anything in the history of the world. Because of the great success of investing in generating wealth, there must be a way for investing to be used to assist in the alleviation of poverty. To examine this possibility, one must consider the root causes of poverty, the reasons for the success of investing, and how poverty is currently being alleviated, to effectively develop a way for investing to be used to help alleviate poverty.

Skbi Big 5 Survey 2020 February, Singapore Management University

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

On balance, our overall read of the latest multiyear Big5 survey results implies the following economy-at-risk scale (least to most): India, US, Euro Area, Japan and China (i.e., India’s economy might be least at-risk, while China is deemed to be most at-risk). Broadly, survey participants expect the risk assessment to GDP growth to be skewed to the downside in 2020 followed by a more balanced backdrop in 2021. But participants seem to be more divided, with most responses favoring “downside” or/and “balanced” risks, on the 2022 growth environment. The risks to headline inflation in 2020, however, appear to be more …

Financial Illiteracy And Pension Contributions: A Field Experiment On Compound Interest In China, Changcheng Song

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

I conduct a field experiment to study the relationship between peoples’ misunderstanding of compound interest and their pension contributions in rural China. I find that explaining the concept of compound interest to subjects increased pension contributions by roughly 40%. The treatment effect is larger for those who underestimate compound interest than for those who overestimate compound interest. Moreover, financial education enables households to partially correct their misunderstanding of compound interest. I structurally estimate the level of misunderstanding of compound interest and conduct a counterfactual welfare analysis: lifetime utility increases by about 10% if subjects’ misunderstanding of compound interest is eliminated.

Skbi Big 5 Survey 2019 August, Singapore Management University

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

On balance, our overall interpretation of the multiyear Big5 survey results implies the following economy-at-risk scale (least to most): India, China, US, Japan and Euro Area (i.e., India’s economy appears to be the least at-risk, while the Euro Area might be the most at-risk). Broadly, survey participants expect the risks to GDP growth to be tilted to the downside in 2019 and 2020 followed by a more balanced growth environment in 2021. But participants seem to lean toward a more balanced risk assessment on headline inflation from 2019 through 2021, with the exception of the Euro Area, where a modest …

Esg And Corporate Financial Performance: Empirical Evidence From China's Listed Power Generation Companies, Changhong Zhao, Yu Guo, Jiahai Yuan, Mengya Wu, Daiyu Li, Yiou Zhou, Jiangang Kang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Nowadays, listed companies around the world are shifting from short-term goals of maximizing profits to long-term sustainable environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. People have come to realize that ESG has become an important source of the corporate risk and may affect the company's financial performance and profitability. Recent research shows that good ESG performance could improve the financial performance in some countries. Yet, the question of how does ESG affect financial performance has not been thoroughly discussed and studied in China. In this article, we study China's listed power generation groups to explore the relationship between ESG performance and …

Place, Space, And Foreign Direct Investment Into Peripheral Cities, Conor Mcdonald, Peter J. Buckley, Hinrich Voss, Adam R. Cross, Liang Chen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Perspectives drawn from the economic geography literature are increasingly used to generate insights into locational issues in international business. In this paper, we seek to integrate these literatures further by investigating the locational determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) into peripheral cities within an emerging economy. Peripheral cities in emerging economies are attracting a growing proportion of global FDI flows, but the international business literature lacks a framework for understanding subnational determinants of FDI, particularly into non-core locations. We draw on the core-periphery model to build and test theory on how spatial interdependencies between subnational locations impact on the distribution …

The Path Of Least Resistance: How Strict Chinese Stock Market Regulation Incentivizes Chinese Companies To List In Foreign Stock Exchanges, Chenyu Yin

Business and Economics Summer Fellows

Despite the recent trade dispute, decades of increased trade between the U.S. and China have given Chinese companies more opportunities to list on foreign stock markets, so they can find better financing opportunities in foreign markets. With the rapid development of the Chinese financial industry and the continuous spread of news on various company listings, why is it that many Chinese companies choose to list overseas, especially in the U.S. and Hong Kong, but not in China? In addition, what is the difference between the U.S. and Hong Kong exchanges, and how does that difference affect Chinese companies’ choice of …

Political Turnovers, Ownership, And Corporate Investment In China, Jerry X. Cao, Julio Brandon, Tiecheng Leng, Sili Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

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 term. We find a divergence in investment rates between state owned enterprises (SOEs) and private firms following political turnover. SOEs increase investment by 6.0% following the turnover while investment rates for private firms decline, suggesting that the political influence exerted over SOEs may crowd out private investment.

The Impact Of Rural Pensions In China On Labor Migration, Karen Eggleson, Ang Sun, Zhaoguo Zhan

Faculty and Research Publications

We study the impact of China’s new rural pension program on promoting migration of labor by applying a regression discontinuity analysis to this new pension program. The results reveal a perceptible difference in labor migration among adult children whose parents are just above and below the age of pension eligibility: The adult children with a parent just attaining the pension-eligible age are more likely to be labor migrants compared with those with a parent just below the pension-eligible age. We also find that with a pension-eligible parent, the adult children are more likely to have off-farm jobs. These abrupt changes …

Shadow Banking And Regulation In China And Other Developing Countries, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

The rapid but largely unregulated growth in shadow banking in developing countries such as China can jeopardize financial stability. This article discusses that growth and argues that a regulatory balance is needed to help protect financial stability while preserving shadow banking as an important channel of alternative funding. The article also analyzes how that regulation could be designed.

Innovation Outcomes Of Knowledge-Seeking Chinese Foreign Direct Investment, Xianming Wu, Nathaniel C. Lupton, Yuping Du

Faculty Publications

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigates how organizational learning, absorptive capacity, cultural integration, specialization of the acquired firm and characteristics of transferred knowledge impact innovation performance subsequent to overseas acquisitions.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey responses from 222 Chinese multinational enterprises engaged in overseas acquisitions.

Findings

Differences between acquiring and acquired firms’ capabilities, while having a positive direct influence, suppress the positive impact of organizational learning and absorptive capacity, suggesting that multinationals require some basic level of capabilities to appropriate value from overseas acquisitions.

Research limitations/implications

This paper investigates the impact of knowledge-seeking overseas acquisition of Chinese multinationals on innovation …

Is China’S Outward Investment In Oil A Global Security Concern?, Ilan Alon, Aleh Cherp

Faculty Publications

The dramatic increase in investment by Chinese SOEs in overseas oil assets is primarily driven by energy security concerns. Whether such investment will benefit or harm energy security of other countries is hotly contested. On one hand, this investment can supplement the overall lack of investment in the sector, benefiting all consumers. On the other hand, it may exacerbate environmental and political problems associated with fossil fuels.

Motivations For Us Foreign Direct Investment, Christina Buoninfante

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to determine US firms’ motivations for foreign direct investment and to explore to what extent US firms continue to invest into China and India. I first correlate the agricultural, industrial, and service sectors in the United States with those of China and India. I find that there is a positive relationship between the correlation of US sectors and the host country’s sectors and foreign direct investment into each sector. This supports the theory of Vernon’s product life cycle hypothesis, which explains that firms expand into lesser developed countries when their product becomes more sensitive …

Asian Corporate Governance Or Corporate Governance In Asia?, Shaomin Li, Anil Nair

Management Faculty Publications

Corporate governance has become an important issue for Chinese and Indian firms as they increasingly interact with regulators and investors from developed markets. For instance, tapping into global capital markets to raise funds to finance their domestic and international growth requires firms from China and India to demonstrate strong corporate governance credentials, so that investors do not discount their stock (LaPorta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer, & Vishny, 2000). The swift action of Chinese and Indian authorities in response to recent corporate scandals – such as the one at Satyam Computers – reveals that even governments in emerging countries such as China and …

Brink's Entry Into China 2007, Roger R. Schnorbus, Littleton M. Maxwell

Robins School of Business White Paper Series, 1980-2022

This case was prepared from various referenced sources and was developed solely for classroom discussion; the case is not intended to serve as an endorsement, source of primary data or an illustration of either effective or ineffective handling of a business situation.

Ron Rokosz, the President of Brink's International was both pleased and distressed as he reviewed the financial results of International operations for fiscal 2006. Revenue had increased by 14% to $1,568.6M, driven by strong gains in both EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) and LA (Latin America). In addition, operating profit in International was up by 68%. (Exhibit 1) …

Does Underwriter Reputation Affect The Performance Of Ipo Stocks?, Chunchi Wu, Sheen Liu, Junbo Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper we examine the relationship between performance of the Chinese IPO firms and the reputation of investment bankers underwriting their stocks. Similar to previous studies on well-developed stock markets, we find that the initial return on the first day of trading is strongly positive for Chinese IPO stocks due to underpricing. This initial return is negatively related to the underwriter's reputation, suggesting that the better the reputation of the underwriter, the less underpricing and hence, the lower the initial return of the IPO stock. Extending the analysis to a ten-day window after the first trading day, we find …