A configurational analysis of cultural dimensions of sustainability performance

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Hegel’s Aesthetic Theory of Tragedy in the Light of the Three Kingdoms

Hegel’s aesthetic theory of tragedy is divided into three parts: occurrence, development and resolution, in which the root cause of tragedy is conflict, the way of tragedy development is struggle, and the result of tragedy resolution is reconciliation. The ancient Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms contains conflicting loyalties and righteousness, and is set against the backdrop of war. Its tragic causes and tragic effects are in line with Hegel’s aesthetic theory of tragedy. Therefore, by analysing the ancient Chinese novel, we can gain a deeper understanding of Hegel’s aesthetic theory of tragedy

Value Premium In The Chinese Stock Market：Free Lunch Or Paid Lunch?

In this paper we examine the time-series predictability of the book-to-market (B/M) ratio for annual and monthly portfolio returns in the Chinese stock market.  We find that value premiums exist throughout our sample period of 1998 to 2008. However, the predictability of B/M appears to be unrelated with financial distress risk. In fact, value stocks are less risky than growth stocks in terms of return volatility and estimated financial distress risk. Further, our results suggest that the factor VMG, which is directly related to value premium, is not a pervasive risk measure compared to market factor and SMB. While the size effect seems to be closely related to distress risk, both size and B/M factors do not appear to be driven by financial distress risk

City-Biased Economic Policies, Urbanization, and Urban - Rural Market Segmentation in China

Since the introduction of market reform in the late 1970s China has had the fastest-growing major economy for the past 30 years with an average annual GDP growth rate above 10%. In tandem with the rapid developments, however, China’s market has maintained many of the dual features for a prolonged period. Among the dual features, spatial separation of urban and rural markets is, if not the only, a main form and its disadvantages have been gradually affecting the long-term economic development of China. A large literature has been analyzing the patterns of market behavior between urban and rural regions and attempting to draw conclusions from that behavior about the nature of the underlying market. In particular, many analysts have attempted to draw conclusions about the degree of market segmentation and the causes for it

Corporate Governance and Performance of Listed Commercial Banks during Financial Crisis: Evidence from China’s Banking Industry

This paper examines the impact of corporate governance on bank performance. Using a sample of China’s listed commercial banks from years 2007 to 2009, we investigate how corporate governance practices affect the performance of China's listed banks during financial crisis. We use two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression to solve the well-known endogeneity problem in corporate governance literature, and compare our results to OLS regression of bank performance on governance mechanisms. A number of interesting findings are yielded in our study. First, there are an inverted U-shaped relation between board size and bank performance, and between proportion of independent directors and performance. Second, the banks whose controlling shareholder is the State can generate better performance than other banks. Third, the shareholding of the largest shareholder affects bank performance but its effect is non-linear, while the shareholding of other large shareholders affects negatively on the bank performance. Fourth, executive compensation incentives have a significant positive impact on bank performance. Our results are robust to various specifications

Macro Stress Testing On Credit Risk Of Commercial Banks In China

In recent years, a lot of effort has been put into stress testing on credit risk of banks all over the world. The New Basel Capital Accord, Basel Ⅱ, imposes the rigorous stress testing requirements: banks which implement the Internal Ratings-Based Approach (IRB) must conduct stress tests. The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) also requires all Chinese commercial banks to implement stress testing to manage credit risk. During the current financial crisis, stress testing on credit risk became a reviving focus of concern.Macro stress testing refers to a range of techniques used to assess the vulnerability of a financial system to “exceptional but plausible” macroeconomic shocks (see Blaschke et al, 2001 and Sorge, 2004). Most researchers design macro stress testing by modeling the link between macroeconomic variables and credit risk measures. Sensitivity analysis, scenario analysis, and extreme values are usually employed to implement the stress testing

The Voluntary Adoption of an Audit Committee and Earnings Quality: Evidence from China

This study investigates the causes and consequences of firms’ voluntarily adoption of the audit committees, using a sample of China’s listed firms from 2001 to 2008 when no regulations or listing rules existed for audit committees. We develop and test two hypotheses. The ‘‘demand’’ hypothesis holds that firms with greater agency costs are more likely to have an audit committee. In contract , the ‘‘opportunistic behavior’’ hypothesis predicts that the bargaining power of the CEO relative to the rest of the board of directors will determine the level of composition of the board and the extent of board monitoring. In this study, we empirically investigate the validity of these two hypotheses and further compare the quality of accounting numbers produced by China’s listed firms with and without an audit committee, in order to shed light on the determinants and effectiveness of audit committee in emerging markets

Can the spending of corporate social responsibility be offset? Evidence from pharmaceutical industry

This study aims to investigate whether the costs spent on corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be offset, and identify the inflection point when financial returns from CSR exceed the spending. By using Principal Component Analysis, we developed the Carroll’s CSR model to measure actual CSR spending. Drawing on data of 315 listed pharmaceutical firms from China, the quadratic effect was used to examine the inflection point, and the panel data regression was employed to examine the impact of CSR spending on current and subsequent financial performance. The results show that CSR spending cannot be offset in the shortterm. After two years of CSR implementation, ethical-domain and overall CSR spending positively relate to return on assets (ROA), whereas legal-domain CSR spending positively affects ROA after three years of CSR implementation, all justifying that CSR spending can be offset in the long-term. This research contributes to literature by precisely recognizing the time-based inflection point in financial performance arises, which is less discussed in existing CSR studies. The study findings imply that corporate managers need to view CSR spending as capital investment rather than operating costs, and policy makers should mandate institutional arrangements to facilitate CSR

Antitumor immunostimulatory activity of the traditional Chinese medicine polysaccharide on hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a prevalent malignancy, often associated with compromised immune function in affected patients. This can be attributed to the secretion of specific factors by liver cancer cells, which hinder the immune response and lead to a state of immune suppression. Polysaccharides derived from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) are valuable constituents known for their immunomodulatory properties. This review aims to look into the immunomodulatory effects of TCM polysaccharides on HCC. The immunomodulatory effects of TCM polysaccharides are primarily manifested through the activation of effector T lymphocytes, dendritic cells, NK cells, and macrophages against hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) both in vivo and in vitro settings. Furthermore, TCM polysaccharides have demonstrated remarkable adjuvant antitumor immunomodulatory effects on HCC in clinical settings. Therefore, the utilization of TCM polysaccharides holds promising potential for the development of novel therapeutic agents or adjuvants with advantageous immunomodulatory properties for HCC

Bank Efficiency and Regional Economic Growth: Evidence from China

This paper examines for the first time the relationship between bank efficiency and regional economic growth in China with provincial data over 1995 - 2014. We find consistent and strong evidence that bank efficiency positively affects regional economic growth. Further, bank efficiency exerts a more pronounced impact on economic growth in inland provinces than coastal regions. The insignificant effect of the quantity of credit in our regressions suggests that a mere expansion of financial volume is not effective in promoting regional economic growth, whereas the improvement in the quality of financial intermediation plays an important role fostering provincial economic growth