Table of Content

15 April 2024, Volume 0 Issue 4

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Theoretical Economics

A Scale Estimation and Structural Analysis of China’s Data Factor: From the Perspective of Information Value Chain

XU Xiang, TIAN Xiao-xuan, LIKE Ao-bo, CHEN Bin-kai

2024, 0(4):  3-16. 

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Data is a key production factor in the digital economy era. Estimating and analyzing the scale of data elements and their income distribution can help to correctly understand the current level of digital economy development in China and provide a data foundation for the related researches. The existing researches mostly focus on the production cost or market value of data elements, lacking estimation methods constructed from the perspective of the information value chain that fully consider the entire process of data value formation and release. Through improving the existing estimation methods, this paper conducts a calculation of the data element investment in various provinces from 2012 to 2019. The results show that China’s data element investment reached 2.05 trillion yuan in 2019, an increase of 1.35 times from 871.2 billion yuan in 2012, with an average annual growth rate of 13.02%. China’s investment in data elements exhibits such significant characteristics as regional inequality, etc., which may lead to a widening gap in the stock of data elements among the provinces; that is not conducive to the high-quality development of the digital economy. The above results fully demonstrate that the importance of data elements in economic growth and initial income distribution is constantly increasing, and the relevant basic systems and policy measures should be implemented as soon as possible.

Government Integrity and Enterprise Innovation Quality

WANG Yan-wu, MO Chang-wei

2024, 0(4):  17-29. 

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Establishing an honest government is a primary measure to optimize the business environment and build a friendly and clean relationship between government and business, which has a profound impact on enterprises’ research and development motivation and innovation behavior. Based on the measurement of the regional government integrity level with Baidu Search Index, this study conducts empirical tests on the impact and transmission mechanism of the regional government integrity on enterprise innovation quality by taking listed industrial enterprises in China’s A-share market as samples. The findings reveal the following facts: firstly, the level of regional government integrity has a significant promotion effect on the enterprise innovation quality; secondly, there is significant business heterogeneity in the effect of regional government integrity on the innovation quality of enterprises. To improve local government integrity will significantly promote the innovation quality of small-scale enterprises, non-state-owned enterprises, enterprises in the high-tech intensive industries, low asset specific enterprises and enterprises in the eastern region; thirdly, government integrity affects the innovation quality of enterprises mainly by encouraging enterprises to engage in more complex invention and innovation, independent innovation and reducing transaction costs; fourthly, the level of Internet development will amplify the role of government integrity on the quality of enterprise innovation. The above conclusions suggest that in the Internet era, local governments should pay more attention to the construction of government integrity, improve the level of governance, and consolidate the foundation for the honest society, so as to promote the independent innovation momentum of local enterprises, improve the quality of innovation, and help to achieve the high-quality development of the economy.

Public Economics & Administration

Flexible Tax Collection and Administration and Corporate Digital Transformation: A Quasi-Natural Experiment Based on the Disclosure of Tax-Paying Credit Rating

PANG Yu-meng, ZHANG Jian-bo

2024, 0(4):  30-43. 

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Flexible tax collection and management is an important measure to reform the tax collection and management system and promote the modernization of tax governance, its micro effect is even related to the transformation, upgrading, and high-quality development of enterprises. Taking the reform of tax credit rating disclosure as a starting point and employing the sample data from Chinese A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2012 to 2021, this study empirically analyzes the impact and mechanisms of flexible tax collection and management on the digital transformation of enterprises. The findings indicate that tax credit rating disclosure has a significant promoting effect on the digital transformation of enterprises, and this positive impact has heterogeneity among different types of enterprises, with non-state-owned companies and labor-intensive businesses experiencing a more pronounced effect under policy incentives. The mechanism analysis reveals that the tax credit rated as A can alleviate corporate financing constraints and promote R&D investment, thereby enhancing the level of digital transformation of enterprises. Given this, in the future, it is necessary to continuously improve the tax credit rating system, enhance the incentive effect of tax credit rating disclosure on promoting the digital transformation of enterprises, at the same time, further alleviate financing constraints for businesses, guide enterprises to strengthen digital technology research and development, and foster the digital transformation of the non-state-owned and the traditional manufacturing enterprises by such measures as digital transformation demonstration zones, industry synergy development, and so on.

The Impact of the Fiscal Reform of“Province-Managing-County”on the Spatial Deviation of“Economy-Grain”

HE Qiang, WEI Feng, QI Yan-bin

2024, 0(4):  44-57. 

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Food security and economic development are important foundations and guarantees for national security, but the spatial deviation of “economy-grain”, i.e., the uncoordinated relationship, will not only delay the strategic pace of building China into an agricultural power, but also hinder the high-quality development of China’s economy. Therefore, by making use of the panel data from 1864 county-level governments in China from 2000 to 2020, this paper studies the impact and the internal mechanism of the fiscal reform of “province-managing-county” (PMC) on the spatial deviation of “economy-grain” (SDEG). The findings show that the fiscal reform of “province-managing-county” will to a certain degree intensify the spatial deviation of “economy-grain”, i.e., it will result in the deepening of the discordant degree between grain production and economic development. The mechanism analysis indicates that the intensification of SDEG is caused by the increase in fiscal decentralization and the level of non agricultural economic development, as well as the decline in agricultural market vitality. The heterogeneity analysis reveals that compared to other regions, the fiscal PMC reform has the greatest impact on the SDEG in the central and western regions and the concentrated and contiguous poverty-stricken areas; when without being constrained by the responsibility for grain production, the policy effect of the fiscal reform of PMC should be mainly focused on economic growth. Therefore, it is necessary to optimize the implementation mode of the fiscal reform of PMC, and reverse the non-grain development tendency of the county-level governments; to establish a linkage mechanism between food security and promotion incentives, and revise the guidance of county-level officials towards “moving towards the economy and away from grain”; to improve the mechanism of interest compensation, and relieve the financial pressure in major grain producing counties; and to reform the financial supervision mechanism in the counties, and strictly control the financial resources towards the direction of expenditure.

Modern Finance

Has the Implementation of the New Securities Law Improved the Information Environment of the Capital Market? An Interpretation Based on the Accuracy of Analysts’ Earnings Forecasts

ZHANG Yan

2024, 0(4):  58-70. 

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The Securities Law, revised in 2019, has significantly increased the degree of punishment and deterrence of violations against laws and regulations. Taking A-share listed companies from 2016 to 2021 as samples, this paper tests the impact of the implementation of the new Securities Law on the accuracy of analysts’ earnings forecasts with the difference-in-differences method. The findings show that after the implementation of the new Securities Law, the accuracy of analysts’ predictions in the companies with weaker quality of information disclosure has greatly improved. In terms of economic significance, the range amounted to 39% of the mean value of analysts’ forecast deviations. After a series of endogeneity and robustness tests, these conclusions still stand. The mechanism analysis shows that the implementation of the new Securities Law improves analysts’ forecast accuracy by means of increasing the quality of corporate information disclosure rather than reducing the level of corporate risk-taking. The heterogeneity test reveals that after the implementation of the new Securities Law the improvement effect of analysts’ forecast accuracy is more significant in the state-owned enterprises, the enterprises with high goodwill, and those with less product market competition. This research conclusion reveals the spill-over effect of law amendments on other market participants. Therefore, the government should further improve the information environment of the capital market, and analysts should increase their attention to the enterprises with lower information disclosure quality.

Inflation Expectations and Corporate M&A and Reorganization: Synergistic Effect or Market Value Management?

FANG Pei-jie, ZHU Si-yuan

2024, 0(4):  71-84. 

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M&A and reorganization serve as catalysts for corporate development and the adjustment of the national economic structure. Against the backdrop of rising global inflation, the impact of inflation on the mergers and acquisitions of Chinese companies is worth paying attention to. Based on the anticipated shifts in inflation from 2007 to 2021 and the M&A behaviors of non-financial companies listed on the A-share market in China, this paper conducts an empirical study. The findings reveal the following: firstly, when the inflation expectations increase, corporate equity will be undervalued due to the impact of inflation illusion on the investors, prompting firms to initiate M&A transactions to restore valuation; secondly, at times when inflation expectations are heightened, enterprises predominantly engage in non-industrial rather than industrial M&As. Although the frequency of initiated M&A deals escalates, the probability of their achievements decreases. After the M&A deals, the market performance somewhat shows improvements, whereas the operational performance experiences a decline. There is an increased likelihood of goodwill impairment charges within three years, suggesting that enterprises are primarily driven by market value management motives instead of the pursuit of synergistic effects when undertaking M&As; thirdly, for companies involved in the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect and those with higher margin debt balances, the managerial opportunism is mitigated, the inflation illusion of investors is ameliorated, and the propensity to commence M&A transactions based on market value management incentives is reduced. Therefore, to propel high-quality development through corporate M&A activities, it is imperative to optimize expectation management, minimize informational asymmetries, advance the orderly opening of capital markets, refine short-selling mechanisms, and steer M&A activities towards the direction of industrial upgrading through regulatory guidance.

Business Administration

“To Have the Source of Flowing Water”: A Study of the Innovation Spillover Effect of Suppliers

WEI Qing-fang, WEI Xia-hai

2024, 0(4):  85-98. 

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Building a supply chain with strong innovation capabilities is a crucial strategic task for China during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period and beyond. Based on the data of supply chain innovation from listed companies, this study delves into the impact of supplier innovation on downstream customer innovation from both theories and experiences. The main findings are as follows: Firstly, suppliers have a certain leading advantage in innovation ability compared to downstream customers, which is reflected in the fact that their invention patent application time is generally earlier than that of downstream customers, and they have a higher number of invention patents in industries highly dependent on innovation driven development. Secondly, supplier innovation demonstrates significant spillover effects, significantly increasing the innovation output of downstream customers. After a series of endogeneity tests and other robustness tests, this conclusion still holds. Thirdly, supplier innovation contributes to promoting knowledge spillover, increasing cooperated innovation and enhancing the R&D efficiency of downstream customers, thereby increasing their innovation output. Fourthly, supplier innovation yields significant economic benefits, boosting the corporate value and growth prospects of the downstream customers. The above findings contribute to a deeper understanding of corporate innovation and supply chain collaboration, at the same time, offering new policy insights to promote the integration of supply chains and enhance innovation capabilities in China.

The Influencing Mechanism of Internet Celebrity Endorsement on Brand Value in the New Media Environment: The Mediating Role of Fans’ Engagement

NIE Xuan, SHEN Peng-yi, XU Ji-nan

2024, 0(4):  99-112. 

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The rapid development of new media platforms such as Weibo, Bilibili, and Xiaohongshu has spawned a new type of celebrity -- internet celebrity. Hiring internet celebrities as their brand endorsers to attract fans has also become an important brand marketing strategy for companies. However, in the new media environment, the research on how internet celebrity endorsement enhance brand value remains to be further studied. Based on the social influence theory and the relationship strength theory, this paper tries to explore the influencing mechanism and the functional boundary of internet celebrity endorsement on brand value in the new media environment through three experiments. The results show that, compared with the traditional celebrity endorsements, internet celebrity endorsements can significantly enhance brand value.Internet celebrity endorsements can strengthen fans’ engagement and further enhance brand value. When the relationship between brand and endorsers is relatively strong, the positive effect of internet celebrity endorsement on enhancing brand value is more significant than that of traditional celebrity endorsement. When a brand’s endorsement advertisement released on a new media platform contains multiple endorsers, compared with the traditional celebrity endorsement, the positive influence of internet celebrity endorsement on fans’ engagement and the mediating role of fans’ engagement will be weakened. The above conclusion has enriched the relevant researches on the influence of internet celebrity endorsement and fans’ engagement, which has guiding significance for enterprises to implement internet celebrity endorsement strategies in brand marketing.

Industry & Trade

Innovative City Construction and the Key Core Technology Innovation of Enterprises

JIANG Zhong-yu

2024, 0(4):  113-126. 

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In the context that the global competition pattern is undergoing profound changes, how to promote enterprises to accelerate the progress of key core technology innovation is an important issue for government innovation governance. On the basis of theoretical analysis, this paper combines the enterprise patent information with the national strategic emerging industry planning to measure the key core technology innovation performance of enterprises. It also takes the national innovative city pilot policy as the quasi-natural experiment to empirically test the influencing effect and mechanism of the construction of innovative cities on the key core technology innovation of enterprises. The research results show that the construction of innovative cities has significantly promoted the improvement of enterprises’innovative performance of their key core technology, and with the further implementation of the pilot policy, the policy effect will be gradually improved. The mechanism test reveals that the construction of innovative cities can have a positive impact on the innovation of key core technologies of enterprises through the two paths of promoting the accumulation of urban knowledge capital and improving the innovation risk bearing ability of enterprises. The heterogeneity analysis shows that for the state-owned enterprises, the enterprises in the growth or decline stages, the enterprises located in lower class or economic center cities, and the enterprises located in cities with stronger basic research ability, the role of innovative city construction in enabling key core technology innovation is more obvious. Therefore, it is necessary to accelerate the construction of innovative cities according to local conditions, promote the renewal and iteration of urban innovation infrastructure and innovation factors, and establish a multi-party sharing mechanism for enterprise innovation risks.

External Uncertainty, Digital Empowerment and Enterprise GVC Embeddedness: Evidences from Enterprises in Countries along the “Belt and Road”

GUO Ping, HU Jun, QIN Kai-qiang

2024, 0(4):  127-140. 

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The external uncertainty intensifies the contraction of the global value chain, which has become an important issue for the construction of the regional value chain of the “Belt and Road”. Deepening the digital empowerment will help enterprises cope with the impact of uncertainty shock and stabilize their integration into the global value chain. Using the World Bank enterprise survey data and global uncertainty index from 2008 to 2019, this paper studies the impact of external uncertainty on the global value chain embeddedness of enterprises in countries along the “Belt and Road” and the moderating effect of digital empowerment. The findings show that the external uncertainty significantly inhibits the embedding decision and embedding level of enterprises in the global value chain of countries along the “Belt and Road”, and that the external uncertainty mainly suppresses the global value chain embedding of enterprises by increasing supply chain risks, reducing production efficiency, and hindering technological innovation. The heterogeneity analysis shows that external uncertainty has a greater impact on the embedding of global value chains in small-scale enterprises, higher contract-intensive industries, and countries with lower levels of institutional environment. Digital empowerment at the enterprise and national levels will effectively alleviate the inhibition of external uncertainty on the embedding of enterprises in the global value chain of countries along the “Belt and Road”. Based on the above research conclusions, the government urgently needs to stabilize the external risk expectations of enterprises, improve the supply chain risk response mechanism, enhance the ability of enterprises to participate in the global value chain division of labor, promote the resilience of enterprises in the global value chain through digital empowerment, and accelerate the construction of digital infrastructure and innovation of digital trade systems.

Modern Accounting

Artificial Intelligence and Corporate Financial Asset Allocation: Empirical Evidences from the National AI Innovation and Application Pioneer Zone

FENG Wan-xin

2024, 0(4):  141-152. 

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Currently, artificial intelligence (AI) serves as an important driving force for the intelligent transformation of China’s manufacturing industry and the development of the real economy. Taking China’s A-share listed manufacturing companies from 2011 to 2021 as samples, this paper empirically examines the influence of the national AI innovation application pilot zone policy on the financial asset allocation of the manufacturing enterprises within the pilot zones, as well as its underlying mechanisms, by employing a multi-period Difference-in-Differences (DID) model. The results reveal that the national AI innovation pilot zone policy has significantly reduced the level of the financial asset allocation among the manufacturing enterprises within the pilot zones. The mechanism analysis indicates that the policy of the national AI innovation pilot zone has enhanced the total factor productivity of the manufacturing enterprises and alleviated their financial constraints, thereby suppressing the financial asset allocation level of these enterprises. The heterogeneity analysis reveals that the inhibitory effect of the national AI innovation pilot zone policy on the financial asset allocation in the manufacturing sector is stronger when the human capital of enterprises is of higher quality or when asset specificity is lower. The economic consequences analysis reveals that the policy has the potential to increase R&D investments in manufacturing enterprises. Therefore, the pilot zones should further build innovative application scenarios for artificial intelligence, and the non pilot zones should actively learn from the beneficial experiences of the pilot zones.

How Does Corporate Innovation Novelty Affect Corporate Tax Avoidance? Evidences from the Patent Classification Data of China’s Listed Companies

BI Chao, WANG Jing-hua

2024, 0(4):  153-164. 

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Innovation is an important driving force for the development of enterprises, but the innovation model can affect their decision-making. Taking the A-share listed companies in China from 2003 to 2021 as samples, this paper empirically tests the impact of corporate innovation novelty on corporate tax avoidance and its affecting mechanism. The findings show that the enterprises with a higher degree of innovation novelty will have a higher degree of tax avoidance. The mechanism analysis reveals that the higher degree of innovation novelty could enhance the financial constraints of the enterprises and reduce their information transparency, thereby increasing the degree of corporate tax avoidance. Further analyses indicate that the positive correlation between innovation novelty and corporate tax avoidance is more pronounced in the enterprises with higher level of earnings management and decentralization. The economic consequence analysis shows that the tax avoidance behavior brought about by innovative novelty has a certain strategic effect, which can significantly enhance the market competitiveness of enterprise products. Therefore, during the process of innovation, enterprises need to coordinate various decisions well, so that various decisions can have a synergistic driving effect on innovation. Comprehensive and differentiated regulatory strategies should be established to cope with tax avoidance behaviors with different attributes.