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As the cost of completing a transaction, the green merger and acquisition (M&A) premium paid on mergers can influence whether the acquisition creates value or not. However, studies linking M&A premiums to firm value have had mixed results, even fewer studies have examined the effect of green M&A premiums on bidders’ firm value. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether and how green M&A premiums affect firm value in the context of China’s heavy polluters.

Using 323 deals between 2008 and 2019 among China’s heavy polluters, this paper estimates with correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis.

Green M&A premiums are negatively associated with firm value. The results are more significant when firms adopt symbolic rather than substantive corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. Robustness and endogeneity tests corroborate the findings. The negative relation is stronger when acquiring firms have low governmental subsidy and environmental regulation, when firms have overconfident management, when firms are state-owned and when green M&A occurs locally or among provinces in the same region. This study also analyzes agency cost as an intermediary in the relationship between green M&A premium and firm value, which lends support to the agency-view hypothesis.

This study provides systemic evidence that green M&A premiums damage firm value through agency cost channel and the choice of CSR strategies from the perspective of acquirers. These findings enrich the literature on both the economic consequences of green M&A premiums and the determinants of firm value and provide a plausible explanation for mixed findings on the relationship between green M&A premiums and firm value.

This paper aims to study the effect of the establishment of bankruptcy courts on bond issuance market. This paper helps to predict that the introduction of bankruptcy courts in China can mitigate price distortions caused by the implicit government guarantees and promote the development of the high-risk bond market.

This paper exploits the staggered introduction of bankruptcy courts across cities to implement a differences-in-differences strategy on bond issuance data. Using bonds issued in China between 2018 and 2020, the impact of bankruptcy courts on the bond issuance market can be analyzed.

This paper reveals that bond issuance credit spreads increase and is more sensitive to firm size, profitability and downside risk of issuance entity after the introduction of bankruptcy courts. It also reveals a substantive increase in bond issuance quantity and a decrease in issuer credit ratings following the establishment of bankruptcy courts. In addition, the increase of credit spreads is more prominent for publicly traded bonds, those whose issuers located in provinces with lower judicial confidence, bonds issued by SOEs and bonds with stronger government guarantees. Finally, the role of bankruptcy courts is more pronounced in regions with higher marketization.

This paper relates to previous studies that investigate the impact of laws and institutions on external financing. It helps provide new evidence to this literature on how improvements of efficiency and quality in bankruptcy enforcements relate to the marketization of bond issuance. The results provide further evidence on legal institutions and bond financing.

Close relationship with major customers, by curtailing opportunistic behaviors during private placements (PPs) and guaranteeing the production and sales of products after, is expected to facilitate the realization of PP’s strategic goals. However, major customers, on the contrary, may impair PP’s performance because of their strong bargaining power. Based on the transaction cost theory and relational contract theory, this paper aims to investigate the impact of major customers on firms’ strategic development in the context of private placements. The mechanisms of such impact are analyzed from the prospect of economies of scale, supervision and the rip-off effect by major customers. Further, the moderating role of the customer relationship investment (CRI) is considered.

Using a sample of China’s non-financial A-share listed firms during 2010-2016, this paper empirically investigates the impact of customer relationships on firms’ operating performance following PPs. In the main regressions, the sales growth rate serves as the dependent variable to measure PP’s operating performance, while the customer concentration proxies for the closeness of customer relationship. This study captures the impact of customer relationships on PPs’ performance by looking at the coefficient of the interaction term of post PP dummy and customer concentration. In the additional tests, selling and management expenses along with entertainment and traveling expenditures are used to measure customer relationship investment.

Results show that major customers help improve PPs’ strategic performance. The more concentrated the customer portfolio is, the higher operating performance will be after the PPs. Such a relationship is stronger when CRI is at a higher level. However, CRI also incurs costs, which impairs the effect of major customers on net profit. Further research finds that the effect of major customers is more pronounced in situations of extensional PPs, with actively interactive customers and in non-state-owned firms. In addition, state-owned customers with strong bargaining power have impaired the role of customers in promoting PP’s operating performance.

This paper validates the role of customers in firms’ strategic development. The study not only contributes to the research on the economic consequences of customers but also adds to the evolving literature of factors affecting the performance of PPs. The findings of the study have important practical implications for both customer relationship management and the supervision of PPs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relative performance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and privately controlled firms in China, and whether related party transactions (RPTs) add to or subtract from their relative performance, measured by return on assets (ROA).

Univariate and multivariate analyses of a sample of 90 firms that were listed in China between 2007 and 2009 (comprising 45 SOEs and 45 privately controlled firms matched on industry and size).

The authors find that SOEs engage in more tunneling, but find no evidence that privately controlled firms engage to a greater degree in either tunneling or propping. During this period, SOEs outperformed privately controlled firms by almost 4.5 per cent in terms of ROA (unadjusted for RPTs), but their performance advantage was completely offset by tunneling by about 6 per cent of ROA such that they underperformed privately controlled firms by a net 1.5 per cent of ROA.

The research is limited by a relatively small sample size, and in measuring the value of RPTs as the total value of the transactions (which is observable) instead of the difference between the transaction prices and arms-length prices (which would be preferable but is not observable).

The economics of investing in Chinese firms with different controlling interests and RPTs may be of interest not only to investors and other stakeholders in Chinese firms listed domestically, but also to international investors in overseas and cross-listed Chinese firms.

This paper synthesizes research from ownership on performance and RPTs on performance, to disentangling the relative effects of ownership control and RPTs on the performance of Chinese publicly listed firms.

The microcutting performance of the ¹⁰B/Al composite is significantly poor because of the existence of hard boron particles. The effects of cutting parameters, including uncut chip thickness and cutting speed, on the material removal mechanism and surface generation are investigated to improve the surface quality.

The 2D finite element model, which includes a rigid cutting tool, a reinforced phase, a matrix and a dense layer, is established. The effects of uncut chip thickness on material removal mechanism and surface generation are analyzed from a probabilistic perspective. The relationship between the uncut chip thickness and the probability in which the machined surface will have a better surface quality is constructed. A Gaussian distribution formula is applied to describe the machined surface quality.

Two representative particle-removal modes, namely, cutting-through and pulling-out modes, are observed. For cutting-through mode, when the relative cutting location is small, better surface quality is obtained. For pulling-out mode, the quality of the machined surface gradually improves because the further increase of the relative cutting location reduces the height of the generated pit and scratches. The microcutting at high cutting speed tends to suppress the scratch phenomenon. The best surface quality will be obtained at small uncut chip thickness and high cutting speed.

The surface quality generated in microcutting of the ¹⁰B/Al composite can be improved by optimizing the cutting parameters and controlling the particle-removal modes based on the proposed Gaussian distribution formula.

The objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility of using selective laser melting (SLM) process to print fine capillary wick porous structures for heat pipe applications and clarify the interrelations between the printing parameters and the structure functional performance to form guidelines for design and printing preparation.

A new toolpath-based construction method is adopted to prepare the printing of capillary wick with fine pores in SLM process. This method uses physical melting toolpath profile with associated printing parameters to directly define slices and assemble them into a printing data model to ensure manufacturability and reduce precision loss of data model transformation in the printing preparation stage. The performance of the sample was characterised by a set of standard experiments and the relationship between the printing parameters and the structure performance is modeled.

The results show that SLM-printed capillary wick porous structures exhibit better performance in terms of pore diameter and related permeability than that of structures formed using traditional sintering methods, generally 15 times greater. The print hatching space and infilling pattern have a critical impact on functional porosity and permeability. An empirical formula was obtained to describe this impact and can serve as a reference for the design and printing of capillary wicks in future applications.

This research proves the feasibility of using SLM process to printing functional capillary wicks in extremely fine pores with improved functional performance. It is the first time to reveal the relations among the pore shapes, printing parameters and functional performance. The research results can be used as a reference for heat pipe design and printing in future industrial applications.

Under the pressure of environment degradation and energy consumption rises, solar photovoltaic power generation (SPPG) has been seen as a strategic emerging industry in China. However, the SPPG projects have many uncertain factors in the process of the life cycle. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the investment risk comprehensively.

Specifically, this paper firstly identified the risk factors and consequences of SPPG project investment and constructed the investment risk factor evaluation index system. Secondly, the factor analysis method was used to reveal the key investment risk factors and risk consequences. Then, the research hypotheses and conceptual model were proposed, and the empirical analysis was conducted based on the structural equation model (SEM).

The results showed that the six key risk factors (political, economic, technological, management, market and natural) have a significant impact on the risks during the whole period. The influence degree of risk factors in the operational period is such that market factor > political factor > economic factor > management factor > natural factor > technical factor. In addition, the risk of constructional period has a significant impact during the risk of operational period. Except for natural factors, all risk factors are correlated among the mutual influence relationship of risk factors. Finally, this paper puts forward management implications based on the above conclusions: effectively identify investment risk factors and comprehensively improve risk management ability; (refine the risk factors of SPPG project investment and develop targeted risk prevention and control strategies; define risk management objectives and make relevant strategic plans.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalisability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.

It can also help stakeholders propose risk prevention strategies throughout the entire process, to promote the sustainable development of SPPG projects.

This study focuses on the investment risk of SPPG projects, by building an evaluation index system to identify key risk factors, and then establishes a SEM covering constructional period risks and operational period risks to better explore SPPG project risks, in an effort to reveal the mutual influence relationship and influence path of investment risk factors of the projects.

This paper aims to use artificial neural network (ANN) methods to predict stock price crashes in the Chinese equity market.

Three ANN models are developed and compared with the logistic regression model.

Results from this study conclude that the ANN approaches outperform the traditional logistic regression model, with fewer hidden layers in the ANN model having superior performance compared to the ANNs with multiple hidden layers. Results from the ANN approach also reveal that foreign institutional ownership, financial leverage, weekly average return and market-to-book ratio are the important variables when predicting stock price crashes, consistent with results from the traditional logistic model.

First, the ANN framework has been used in this study to forecast the stock price crashes and compared to the traditional logistic model in the world’s largest emerging market China. Second, the receiver operating characteristics curves and the area under the ROC curve have been used to evaluate the forecasting performance between the ANNs and the traditional approaches, in addition to some traditional performance evaluation methods.

With the analysis of the causes of corruption, this study aims to investigate specific anti-corruption measures that can be implemented to reform the political system and the social climate of China.

This study examines 97 severe corruption cases of high-ranking officials in China, which occurred between 2012 and 2015. As this insinuates that both institutional and social corruption are major problems in China, the analysis delves into multiple facts of corruption, including different types, four primary underlying causes, and suggestions regarding the implementation of three significant governmental shifts that focus on investigation, prevention tactics and legal regulations.

China’s corruption is not only individual-based but also it has developed into institutional corruption and social corruption. Besides human nature and instinct, the causes of corruption can be organised into four categories, namely, social customs, social transitions, institutional designs and institutional operations. For the removed high-ranking officials, the formation of interest chains was an important underlying cause behind their corruption.

This study makes a significant contribution to the literature because this study provides a well-rounded approach to a complex issue by highlighting the significance of democracy and the rule of law as ways to regulate human behaviour to combat future corruption.

A flexible decision technology called the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution (GMCR) is applied to a generic aquaculture conflict to illustrate how GMCR can be used to systematically investigate a wide range of conflicts arising in aquaculture in order to obtain meaningful strategic insights and thereby assist in making informed decisions in aquaculture development. To emphasize the importance of being able to resolve aquaculture controversies, a review of the global economic impacts of the aquaculture industry is provided and the key stakeholders who may be involved in aquaculture disputes along with their legitimate interests are identified. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The GMCR methodology comprises two main stages: modeling and analysis. During the modeling stage, key decision makers (DMs), the options under each DM’s control and each DM’s relative preferences over feasible states are identified based on a thorough background investigation to a given dispute. Within the analysis stage, solution concepts that describe key characteristics of human behavior under conflict are utilized to determine resolutions that could occur when DMs interact under pure competition and cooperatively. Interpretation of the equilibrium results provides meaningful strategic insights for better understanding which strategies a given DM could select as the conflict evolves over time.

The results demonstrate how difficult it can be to balance the interests of different key stakeholders in aquaculture development. In all possible resolutions identified in the generic aquaculture conflict, at least two DMs among First Nations, environmental group and residents (Res) would object to the expansion of aquaculture activities due to the assumption that the government would choose to appease one stakeholder at a time. They also reflect the need for a useful tool box of decision technologies for addressing the vast range of challenges that could arise in the important area of marine economics and management.

The GMCR methodology possesses several unique and key original capabilities in comparison to other conflict analysis models. First, it only requires limited information to calibrate a conflict model. Second, it contains a number of solution concepts that describe how a DM could think and behave under conflict. Third, it furnishes a range of informative output, follow-up analyses and advice for use in real-life decision support. Finally, all of the foregoing advantages of GMCR can be contained within decision support systems that permit practitioners and researchers to readily apply the GMCR methodology to real-life conflicts.