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This study explains the conflict of interest between the majority stockholders, who have nonfloatable shares, and the minority stockholders, who have floatable shares in China's stock market. The growth of the Chinese financial markets is seriously constrained given the market segmentation of the two classes of stocks. This study provides a dynamic valuation model that motivates controlling stockholders to convert their nonfloatable shares to floatable shares and illustrates how a security design is able to float these shares. Issues on how to improve future corporate governance in China are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using daily data from May 2000 to January 2004, this study examines the risk, return, securities selection, and market timing performance of China's securities investment funds (SIFs), in comparison with the performance of the SIFs in the United States. Our results indicate that China investment funds show superior market timing performance, while U.S. fund managers display stronger securities selection ability. These results imply that the potential synergy for Sino-U. S. joint venture investment funds could be tremendous. Additional analysis of the trading volume of closed-endfunds in China illustrates that investors' interests in SIFs are strongly and positively related to fund performance. Results also indicate that Chinese investors favor professionally managed funds more than direct investment in stocks during negative market conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the establishment and development of the most successful futures market in China. We document the evolution of the market microstructures and the attempts by the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange's management to improve the performance of the futures market. Our finding suggests that if other former centrally planned economies want to establish futures markets, they must think carefully not only of the design and microstructure of the futures market, but they also have to choose carefully what contracts to offer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the government fiscal deficit and debt rates in China. We utilize a theoretical framework to develop the government budget identity and the public deficit-debt models. This approach gives a theoretical basis to analyze the fiscal deficit and debt rates in China. Using a vector autoregressive analysis, the study empirically investigates the relationship between deficit and debt rates and sheds light on their future values for the Chinese economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses and examines the development of an Asian bond market, which serves as a bridge to establish financial cooperation in the region. The issues of currency denomination are discussed. In addition, the role that China may play in the establishment of the bond market is presented and analyzed. It is argued that cooperation between China and Hong Kong is desirable to further enhance the development of the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the effect of China's imports on importing countries' inflation is examined. Using data from 1994 to 2003, it is argued that China's export surge is an important contributor to lowering inflation in importing countries. Using fixed and random effect models, we identify a statistically significant negative correlation between the share of a country's imports from China and its rate of inflation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Revenue volatility poses challenges for fiscal policy makers. It can create risks to service provision, require borrowing, or entail sudden tax changes. This paper investigates the use of value-at-risk techniques to measure the fiscal risks caused by volatility as well as the sensitivity of measured risks to policies that may limit volatility. The revenue of Hong Kong's Special Administrative Region (SAR) is among the most volatile in Asia, and thus is a natural case for applying these techniques. Reflecting its revenue volatility, Hong Kong's SAR has traditionally held high fiscal savings (reserves), and the value of the self-insurance these savings provide is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the expropriation of tradable shareholders in rights-issuing firms with the split share structure in China. Using a sample of 444 rights issues from 1999 to 2004, we find that the change in wealth of tradable shareholders is negatively correlated with the change in wealth of nontradable shareholders, consistent with an expropriation effect. Additional evidence indicates that the expropriation effect in rights issues is exacerbated when the firm is not ultimately controlled by the government, the nontradable shareholders do not subscribe the shares of rights issues, or the firm has a large second-largest shareholder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies empirically the determinants of Chinese commercial banks' net interest margins from 1996 to 2003. It applies an extension to the Ho and Saunders (1981) model to identify the elements affecting net interest margins. The results indicate that the determinants of net interest margins in the Chinese market include market competition structure, average operating costs, degree of risk aversion, transaction size, implicit interest payments, opportunity cost of reserve, and management efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applies the ARJI-trend model in conjunction with the procedure proposed by Bai and Perron (2003) to investigate the coexistence of permanent and transitory components and time-varying jumps in the A and B stock market indices of the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. Although the response to outside innovations is greater within the transitory component, it is short-lived; conversely, though there is a high level of persistence in the trend, new information has only a lesser effect on the permanent component. Jump variance can also affect total variance, though the effect is far lower than the variance for generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity. Accordingly, the market risk appears small. The reaction to news is heterogeneous within the Shanghai and Shenzhen indices; this may be the result of various market characteristics. During event periods, the permanent component, transitory components, and jump intensity are larger than their averages. After an upward trend, markets return to regular conditions over time. In sum, the total long-run risks within China's market seem low, though speculators can use the sizable transitory component of market fluctuation to engage in arbitrage activities. However, from the viewpoint of asset allocation regarding the trading noise in the Shenzhen B market, we suggest that rational investors deploy more funds in this market and less in the Shanghai A market to avoid a high degree of risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since removal of the peg in July 2005, China has entered a new era of a managed floating exchange rate system. Although many observers have raised concerns about the impact of such a policy change on China's trade surplus, less attention has been paid to its effects on financial markets. This paper investigates the impact of recent renminbi appreciation on stock prices in China since removal of the peg, using threshold cointegration and momentum threshold error-correction model (M-TECM). The results clearly illustrate that no short-run causal relation exists, and an asymmetric causal relationship running from the renminbi/U.S. dollar exchange rate to Chinese Shanghai A-share stock prices in the long run is based on M-TECM. Policy and the broader implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most Chinese listed companies have been transformed from state-owned enterprises; the resulting institutional transformation is characterized by the emergence of highly concentrated ownership and state-owned shares, which may exert an influence on corporate finance. We examine the relationship between ownership structure and cash dividend preference and then reexamine the same relationship with different levels of growth opportunities. The results reveal a positive relationship between cash dividend preference and state ownership, but the same relationship exists only in firms facing lower levels of investment opportunity. However, the ratio of employee shares and tradable shares correlates significantly and negatively with cash dividend preference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically examines the relation between overreaction and the speed of information diffusion in the Chinese stock market. Industry-adjusted firm size and residual analyst coverage are used to proxy the speed of information diffusion. We document strong evidence that the profitability of a monthly contrarian strategy decreases with industry-adjusted firm size or residual analyst coverage. Moreover, the profitability of contrarian strategies survives for a longer horizon for stocks with slower information diffusion than for those with faster information diffusion. This result holds true even if risk, bid-ask spread, lead-lag effect, inventory costs, and limits to arbitrage are properly accounted for. Our findings suggest that information environment and information diffusion determine the extent of overreaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the spillover effects of investor protection standards for interprovince mergers in China's emerging markets. Using a sample of 372 mergers, we find that if the provincial investor protection of the acquirer is better than that of the target, a privately owned acquirer will get significantly higher abnormal returns, whereas a local state-owned acquirer will not. Additional evidence indicates that in contrast to the crossborder acquirers or the private acquirers, the local state-owned acquirers in interprovince mergers come from provinces with worse fiscal conditions and prefer to acquire targets in provinces with better investor protection or fiscal conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the structural changes of volatility spillovers between Chinese A-share and B-share markets induced by a regulation change on February 19, 2001, that allowed Chinese domestic investors to trade in the B-share market. The empirical results of the study, using high-frequency intraday data collected from a sample of seventy-eight firms issuing both A-shares and B-shares and employing a bivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model, show that after the regulation change, the volatility in A-shares increases the volatility in B-shares, thus increasing the risk of the whole market, whereas the latter reduces the former, thus reducing the risk of the whole market. A further investigation of the determinants influencing these structural changes shows that the following factors can encourage structural changes that reduce overall market risk: government ownership, institutional ownership, firm size, B-share proportion, and market-to-book ratio. Conversely, the following factors can encourage structural changes that increase overall market risk: dual roles of chief executive officer and chairman and the joint effect of firm size and B-share proportion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's share of global trade has experienced rapid growth in the past three decades. Taking a demand-side perspective, this paper investigates the causes of this rapid growth by decomposing China's trade growth into preference changes, income growth, and other factors. The results indicate that preference changes explain 35.8 percent of export growth and 41.9 percent of import growth over the period. Income growth (excluding convergence) explains a further 28.4 percent and 27.1 percent, respectively, of export and import growth, respectively. In addition, income convergence further contributed about 24 percent and 11.3 percent, respectively, of export and import growth, respectively. These results are generated using a multiregional numerical general equilibrium model of the global economy involving major trading blocs and are calibrated to both 1975 and 2004 data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses the stability of the stock market in China.

Previous studies find mixed results on the relation between exchange rate movements and stock returns. We revisit the issue by exploring the effect of market efficiency and heterogeneous investors' reaction to exchange rate changes using the unique event of Chinese currency appreciation. Our results show that different investor groups react differently to exchange rate appreciation. In addition, we find that investors with limited investment opportunities react more positively to exchange rate appreciation. Our results suggest that the issues of market efficiency and the differences among investors are important factors to consider when one analyzes the relation between exchange rate movements and stock returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time-series and panel data are used to provide empirical evidence on technical and fundamental trading in the Chinese stock market. An econometric model is used to differentiate between the effect on stock prices of the actions of traders who act on the basis of fundamental analysis (financial ratios) and those acting on the basis of technical analysis. The model is estimated using monthly data on the stock prices of 100 companies listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The results obtained from time series regressions show mixed results for the effectiveness of fundamental trading and overwhelming support for the effectiveness of technical trading. However, panel regressions show that both technical and fundamental trading have roles to play in determining stock prices, but technical trading is more effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the impact of changes in the securities transaction tax (STT) rate on the local A-share market in China. We find that, on average, a 22-basis-point increase in the STT rate is associated with about a 28 percent drop in trading volume, and a 17-basis-point reduction in the STT rate is associated with about an 89 percent increase in trading volume in the Chinese A-share market. Both increases and reductions in the STT rate result in significant increases in market volatility. In addition, increases in the STT rate have mixed effects on market efficiency, either improving or curbing it. Reductions usually either make the market less efficient or have no effect on it. The empirical results show that levying the STT on trading is not an effective tool to regulate the stock market, at least not in this emerging market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the cross-sectional relation between corporate governance and firm liquidity in the Chinese stock market. We construct a measure of overall quality of governance based on publicly available information for each firm listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SHSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) for each year over the 1999-2004 interval. After accounting for other liquidity-related factors, we present strong evidence that the level of corporate governance is positively related to firm liquidity. An increase of 1 percent in corporate governance index (total 100 percent) is on average associated with a 1.2 percent increase in a firm's annual turnover ratio over the subsequent year. Results from examinations of subindices of corporate governance provide further support for the positive governance-liquidity relation. These findings have important implications for academics to investigate the value of enhancing corporate governance, and for regulators to promote corporate governance reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes intraday interdependence of returns and trades between Chinese equity and warrants markets based on a vector autoregression framework proposed by Chan et al. (2002). We find that both stock and warrant trades contain useful information for revealing quotes in the stock and warrants markets using 60- and 100-second data frequencies. However, when the data frequency is reduced from 100 seconds to 5 minutes, we find that stock volume has a negative impact on contemporaneous stock returns, which contradicts the informational effect of stock-trading activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including momentum profits of investment in China, causes of Commonwealth of Independent States exchange rate movements, and the evolution of investment funds in Turkey.

This paper documents significant abnormal profits for industry momentum strategies in Chinese stock markets. Industry momentum remains profitable even after controlling for lead-lag effect, the January effect, and individual stock momentum. Moreover, momentum profits generated by industry-specific components are much larger than those generated by common-factor components of the Fama-French three-factor model and a delayed-reaction three-factor model. The findings provide new evidence that momentum profits are due to idiosyncratic risk and investors' underreaction to industry-specific information. The implication is that behavioral biases, market manipulation, and institutional trading are pivotal in explaining why stock prices do not incorporate industry-specific news instantaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explored and tested the risk-adjusted uncovered interest parity model to investigate the degree of capital mobility in the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, and four East Asian emerging markets relative to China from January 1994 to July 2008. Evidence was found to strongly support our hypotheses; market risk was significant for capital flows in the Chinese capital market, while the relationship between returns and the appreciation rate of the exchange rate were divided between the Asian emerging markets and the developed economies, depending on the directions of capital flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Consumer Sentiment Index (CSI), a leading macroeconomic indicator, reflects consumers' assessments of current financial situations, forecasts consumers' buying behavior, and allows business organizations, such as banks, to capture business opportunities. There is a consensus that the trend of the CSI can forecast consumption activities in a vast array of markets. However, this study demonstrates that it does so for banks only if and when the characteristics of client behavior are taken into account. The study thus contributes to filling a gap in the bank management literature. The managerial implication is that to improve performance, banks should focus on the bank-client relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the determinants of the cross-border-related party (CBRP) transactions of Chinese firms. Our empirical analysis of companies listed on China's stock exchanges provides insightful findings. First, the size of CBRP transactions is positively associated with concentrated ownership, CEO (chief executive officer) duality, and an imbalance of power among large shareholders. Furthermore, the size of CBRP transactions tends to decrease as the proportion of outside directors rises, but it is likely to increase as the outside directors' compensations become larger. State-owned companies make more CBRP transactions than non-state-owned companies. Finally, the equity incentive for executives produces insignificant effects on CBRP transactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research studies have suggested that rising optimism caused by booming stock prices has a significant negative impact on savings decisions. However, identifying this relationship clarifies only one side of the problem. It is also necessary to look at whether savings decisions can affect stock market performance. Moreover, another important question that policy makers may be interested in is how these savings and stock market investment decisions in the private sector can affect economic growth. This paper investigates this mechanism in China via a time-series approach and discusses further policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines entry mode choices between wholly owned subsidiaries (WOSs) and joint ventures (JVs) and the impact on performance for Taiwanese foreign direct investment in China. Taiwan and China share common cultural traits, so Taiwanese investors inherently prefer WOSs because these investors are acquainted with local conditions in China. This paper shows that even if WOSs are a natural choice, transaction cost theory is applicable in explaining the adoption of JVs by Taiwanese firms when investing in China. Firms that choose WOSs generally have higher sales growth and superior profitability. However, the smaller the subsidiary and the less experienced the firm, the more likely that JVs will have better performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of a regulatory policy change in February 2001, the segmentation of the Chinese stock market significantly decreased. Using this event, we show that the Chinese A-share market is more informationally efficient than the B-share market, both before and after the opening of the B-share market. Furthermore, after the event, both the adverse selection and the order-processing component of B shares decreased, as a result of a larger investor base and possibly a lower proportion of informed investors. This study thus sheds new light on the market segmentation and its effect on transaction costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends the TVP-VAR (time-varying parameter structural vector autoregression) (Primiceri 2005) and TVP-R (time-varying parameter autoregression) (Nakajima 2011) to the long-memory models, and uses them to investigate the time-varying effects of changes in the interest rate and renminbi (RMB) exchange rate on the Chinese stock market from July 22, 2005, to January 13, 2012. As shown in the results, the short-term effect on stock returns of changes in the RMB exchange rate is sensitive to the reform of the increasing flexibility of the RMB exchange rate. The short-term effect of interest rate changes on stock returns may be sensitive to the 2008 financial crisis. In the long term, the impact of interest rate changes on stock returns is very limited, whereas appreciation of the RMB is not an unfavorable factor for the Chinese stock market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese authorities hoped that participation of foreign strategic investors (FSIs) could improve the profitability of Chinese banks both quantitatively and qualitatively. While past studies have typically focused on the effect of FSIs on banks' quantitative performance, this paper investigates the quality of profits through earnings management. We use matching theory to consider the selection bias. Our results demonstrate that banks with FSIs have improved the quality of their financial reports because they conducted less loss-avoidance management of earnings, but they engaged in as much management to avoid earnings growth decreases as non-FSI banks did. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's unique split-share structure has resulted in serious agency problems. Moreover, the literature has shown that free cash flow and overinvestment problems are common in China's listed firms. This paper investigates the impact of the split-share structure reform on agency problems. The paper finds a decrease in investment-cash flow sensitivity after the reform of the split-share structure, which is evidence for a decrease in agency problems in China's listed firms after this reform. The result implies that the split-share structure reform has eased the agency problems in China's listed firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to examine whether being listed as a particular type of share (H share, red-chip stock, Taiwan-based stock, or Hong Kong local stock) on the main board of the Hong Kong Exchange will affect the idiosyncratic risks and market risks. The findings are as follows: (1) different political connections mainly affect idiosyncratic risk, (2) the hypothesis of big size with high market risk is supported, (3) the idiosyncratic risks of all the companies in each category taken by category are negatively correlated with expected short-run returns. These results mean that investors should hold the stocks with previous low idiosyncratic risk to earn high expected returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers 250 funds between 2001 Q4 and 2009 Q2. The funds included must have data for at least eight quarters. By comparing dollar-weighted average return and geometric average return of a fund, the paper shows that fund investors always have inferior ability on timing. Their worst performance is related to a fund's larger size, higher subscription fee, better ratings, and higher geometric average returns. Funds of the above characteristics may easily draw the attention of less-informed investors and trigger their timing behavior. As a result, they buy at high prices and sell at low prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compare the trading activities of foreign institutions in China's B-share market to those of domestic institutions in the A-share market before the same private information was released to both markets. Our findings show that both types of institutions were informed about which firms would implement the share structure reform in the next batch of reform. Foreign institutions bought even more shares than domestic ones in the days closely preceding reform announcements. Furthermore, both of them traded aggressively with large trades to profit from their private information. We can calculate the impact of large buy trades initiated by foreign and domestic institutional investors in each day. The impact increased in days before the Share Structure Reform for both foreign and domestic institutional investors. In addition, we find that the impact of large buy trades initiated by foreign institutions on price changes increased in days before the Share Structure Reform more than those initiated by domestic ones in the same days. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior literature suggests that related party transactions may have a potentially detrimental effect on firm valuation because it undermines the corporate governance benefits a firm offers to minority shareholders. The share structure reform provides a unique opportunity to study to what extent the negative valuation effect of related party transactions interacts with corporate governance. Our empirical analysis confirms that related party transactions are detrimental to firm valuation. More importantly, we show that the negative effect of operating related party transactions on firm valuation declined after the share structure reform, partly due to the fact that the quality of corporate governance improved after the reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically tests whether a country's financial reform promotes expansion of its exports measured by the constant-price total value of exports. We test the hypothesis on dynamic panel data of China. We use system GMM (generalized method of moments) estimation to deal with the potential endogeneity problem of important explanatory variables, including financial deregulation. We find that the estimated coefficient on financial deregulation in both ordinary least squares and system GMM estimation is positive and insignificant at the 5 percent level after controlling for other factors affecting export expansion and for fixed time and province effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by the recent debate on the implications of low R2 in the U.S. market, we conjecture that lower R2 is more likely to be associated with noise and low pricing efficiency because stock price tracks its fundamentals more loosely in a less efficient stock market such as China. We conclude that, first, there is no significant difference in information content among stocks with high and low R2. Second, both accruals anomaly and price momentum are much stronger among firms with lower R2. Moreover, the price momentum effect is much stronger among stocks with higher DIS, a new proxy constructed to provide a direct description of noise in stock price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth, J.P. Morgan Emerging Market Bond Index Plus (EMBI+) countries and aluminum futures contracts in China .

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one on the effects of foreign strategic investors on the performance of banks in China, another on the link between the results of Turkish soccer teams and investment decisions of individuals, as well as a report on the cost and revenue efficiency scores of commercial banks in Latin American and Caribbean countries.

China employs a unique foreign bank entry model. Instead of allowing full foreign control of domestic banks, foreign investors are only permitted to be involved in the local banks as minority shareholders. At the same time, foreign strategic investors are expected to commit to bank corporate governance improvement and new technology support. In this context, this paper examines the effect of foreign strategic investors on Chinese bank performance. Based on a unique data set of bank ownership, performance, corporate governance, and stock returns from 1997 to 2010, our regression and event study analysis results suggest that active involvement of foreign strategic investors in bank management has improved the corporate governance model of Chinese banks from a control-based model to a market-oriented model, and accordingly has promoted bank performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an overview of the papers included in the March 2, 2013 issue of "Emerging Markets Finance & Trade" journal including a paper which examined the impact of financial liberalization on the allocation of investment in China, a paper on the spillover effects between the U.S. and Chinese stock markets and a paper about the importance of corporate governance.

There is an urgent need to understand the spillover and cojump effects between the U.S. and Chinese stock markets. The paper finds that since July 2005, the U.S. stock market has caused short-run spillover effects on returns on the Chinese stock market. More specifically, price changes in the United States can be used to predict both closing-to-opening and closing-to-closing returns on the Chinese stock market on the next day. However, there is no significant volatility spillover between the two markets. Both markets have shown stronger cojump behavior since the subprime crisis. The return relationships between the two stock markets are robust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we estimate the technical and allocative efficiency of Chinese commercial banks using both the stochastic frontier analysis primal system, a parametric method, and minimum convex input requirement set, a nonparametric approach. The effects of state ownership and the introduction of foreign minority shareholders (IFMS) on these two types of efficiency measures are also studied. Under both sets of efficiency estimations, the empirical results consistently show that state ownership has no significant effect on the allocative efficiency of Chinese commercial banks, and no significant negative influence on the technical efficiency of these banks. IFMS helps Chinese commercial banks to eliminate the constraints from some ossified institutions and optimize input combinations. These effects significantly enhance allocative efficiency, but exert no considerable influence on technical efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors analyze the impact of equity-based compensation on managerial risk-taking behavior in Chinese listed firms from January 2006 to July 2011. They find that greater risk-taking incentives lead executives to invest more in research and development (R&D) projects and less in capital expenditures. Greater managerial risk-taking incentive increases firm focus. Managerial risk-taking incentives have positive effects on firms' leverage. Overall, increasing the sensitivity of chief executive officers' portfolio value to stock return volatility helps incentivize executives to work harder, as sharing gains and losses with shareholders aligns the interests of executives and shareholders. In addition, the results indicate that state control of firms has a negative effect on R&D investment, and this suggests that state-controlled firms should take more initiative to innovate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a database of firms issuing short-term financing bonds and mid-term notes in China from 2007 to 2011, we uncover whether and how political connections influence the companies' capital allocation efficiency. The authors show that politically connected firms have significantly lower capital allocation efficiency, especially in the case of overinvestment subsamples. In addition, different types of political connections have different effects on firms' inefficient investments. Compared with firms connected to members of the people's congresses and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (MPCP firms), firms connected to government officials (GOF) overinvest more and underinvest less. One year after bond financing, GOF politically connected firms decreased overinvestment, while underinvestment undergoes an upward trend in the MPCP firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including stock market, monetary policy in China, and external shocks in the world economy.

Some policymakers and academic researchers suggest that relaxing the exchange rate regime will increase the independence of Chinese monetary policy. To test this argument, we estimate spot interest rate models with dummy variable sets and derive an economic interpretation. The empirical results suggest that a relaxation of the exchange rate regime increases the independence of market-based monetary policy; however, it weakens the independence of monetary policy for forecasting future normal events, and it also imposes an ambiguous impact on the independence of monetary policy for forecasting future rare events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the financial market of China, stock returns and trade relationship between Latin America and China.