Journal of Asian Economics最新文献

{"title":"Exit of the weak, expansion of the frontier? Forced delisting and rival firms’ innovation boundaries","authors":"Jinbiao Yi,&nbsp;Yang Yang,&nbsp;Peihao Shi","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102244","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102244","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A sound delisting mechanism is a key institutional arrangement for enhancing capital market efficiency. With the deepening of registration-based IPO reform and stricter delisting regulations, market cleansing in China has significantly accelerated, urgently necessitating in-depth investigation into its microeconomic effects. From the perspective of competitors of forcibly delisted firms, this study uses a sample of A-share listed companies from 2015 to 2024 to empirically examine the impact of capital market cleansing on corporate innovation boundaries. The findings reveal that forced delisting significantly promotes the expansion of competitors' innovation boundaries, manifested as a 10.81% rise in new technology field patents. This effect operates by alleviating product market competitive constraints, reconfiguring managerial attention allocation, and mitigating innovation financing constraints, thereby enabling firms to venture beyond established technological trajectories. Additionally, the expansion of innovation boundaries is more pronounced in firms with higher product market positions, in industries with rapid technological iteration, in strategically aggressive firms, and in companies dominated by long-term institutional investors. This study provides systematic empirical evidence on how capital market cleansing influences micro-level corporate innovation decisions and offers important policy implications for evaluating the effectiveness of delisting system reforms and leveraging the capital market's function in serving real economy innovation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"105 ","pages":"Article 102244"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148854136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Robots and fertility intentions in China: Evidence from migrant workers","authors":"Haoyu Hu ,&nbsp;Dawei Feng ,&nbsp;Wei Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102189","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102189","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Amid growing interest in the labor-market outcomes of robots, scant literature has examined how recent technological advances shape rural migrants’ decisions to have a second child. Combining individual-level sample from the CMDS with data from the IFR, we find a significant and robust negative association between robot adoption and rural migrants’ second-child fertility intentions. The effect is particularly pronounced among migrants with higher human capital, in households where husbands are older than their wives, and among new-generation rural migrants. Mechanism analyses suggest that the negative association may operates in part through reduced income and heightened job instability. We further show that relaxing <em>hukou</em> restrictions, expanding access to public housing, and strengthening labor union mitigate the negative effect of robotization on migrants’ fertility intentions. These findings offer useful insights into the recent decline in China’s fertility rate.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"104 ","pages":"Article 102189"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148184402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The role of the central bank in credit and business cycle movements: Evidence from Fiji","authors":"Sanjiv Kumar ,&nbsp;K.P. Prabheesh ,&nbsp;Salote Cirikisuva ,&nbsp;Rajeshni Kumari","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102194","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102194","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study attempts to investigate the co-movements between the business and credit cycles and examines the role of the central bank in stabilizing these cycles in the case of Fiji. For estimation purposes, we utilized the concordance index, dynamic conditional correlation, and a Generalized Linear Model for the sample period from 1992Q1 to 2023Q4. The study finds that, according to the concordance index, both the credit cycle and business cycle moved in the same direction 64% of the time. From the perspective of dynamic conditional correlation, we observe that from 1992 to 2003, the credit and business cycles were positively correlated. However, from 2003 to 2007, the correlation between the two cycles was negative. Moreover, post-COVID-19, both cycles exhibit a positive correlation. Findings form the regression shows that the credit cycle positively affects the business cycle; however, the interest rate is found to have a weak transmission effect on the business cycle. Global GDP has a positive effect on Fiji's credit cycle but exhibits a negative effect on the business cycle.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"104 ","pages":"Article 102194"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148184405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Market integration and regional inequality: From the perspective of trade and migration","authors":"Renhao Huang ,&nbsp;Zhenlin Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102187","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102187","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper develops a general equilibrium model incorporating trade and both intersectoral and interregional migration. Using China’s population census and provincial input-output data from 2000 to 2015, it quantifies changes in trade and migration costs and examines their effects on regional income inequality. The results show that while declining trade costs promote economic growth, they may exacerbate regional inequality. In contrast, reductions in migration costs—whether across sectors or regions—consistently contribute to narrowing regional income inequality. Further analysis reveals that free labor flow offsets inequality induced by trade liberalization, whereas restricted labor flow amplifies regional income inequality. Under potential shocks, all three types of costs remain influential: trade cost reductions drive growth but increase inequality risks, while migration cost reductions improve allocation and reduce inequality. In addition, land income distribution reform promotes both economic growth and regional income convergence, with stronger effects when combined with changes in trade and migration costs. These findings provide policy implications for achieving common prosperity and improving income distribution in the context of a unified national market.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"104 ","pages":"Article 102187"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148184404","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How does customer artificial intelligence affect supplier green innovation? Evidence from China’s supply chains","authors":"Yunjie Chen ,&nbsp;Zhijie Gan ,&nbsp;Zhenhao Sun ,&nbsp;Yanfeng Li","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102193","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102193","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Supply-chain decarbonization increasingly depends on the green transformation of upstream suppliers, yet many suppliers face resource constraints, limited technological capabilities, and insufficient incentives for green innovation (GI). Meanwhile, artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping supply-chain governance through prediction, monitoring, coordination, and knowledge sharing, but its spillover effect on supplier GI remains underexplored. Using a matched panel of Chinese listed customer–supplier pairs from 2009 to 2023, this study examines whether customer AI promotes supplier GI. The results show that customer AI significantly enhances supplier GI. Mechanism analysis indicates that this effect operates through risk monitoring, operational coordination, and innovation spillovers. The effect is stronger among non-SOEs, in high-technology industries, and in high-ESG settings. These findings highlight customer AI as both a governance tool and a technological enabler for supply-chain green upgrading.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"104 ","pages":"Article 102193"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148184403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Enterprises’ bargaining power, supervision by public opinion, and environmental regulations: Evidence from the pollutant discharge permit system of China","authors":"Jingbing Feng ,&nbsp;Shuai Shao ,&nbsp;Hao Wu","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102134","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102134","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Enterprises face various levels of environmental regulation intensity due to the discretion of local governments, which affects the outcome of environmental regulation policy. However, few studies have specifically discussed how informal environmental regulations, represented by public opinion supervision, can correct the above phenomenon. On the basis of data on China’s pollutant discharge permits from 2017 to 2019, this paper directly characterizes environmental regulations at the micro enterprise level and uses the truncated regression method to empirically investigate the weakening effect of enterprises’ bargaining power on environmental regulations and how supervision by public opinion can correct it. The results show that the greater the bargaining power is, the lower the level of environmental regulations are. Further analysis reveals that a higher level of supervision by public opinion, i.e., higher degrees of environmental information disclosure and media concern over environmental issues, can decrease the weakening effect of enterprises’ bargaining power on environmental regulations. The effective role of public opinion relies on institutional conditions, such as superior supervision and the financial status of local governments. This study adds to the literature by providing the empirical evidence of the spatial differences in environmental regulations and the relationship between formal and informal environmental regulations at the micro level, serving as an important decision-making reference for optimizing environmental governance strategies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"103 ","pages":"Article 102134"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147421552","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Central-local environmental policy consistency, streamlining and delegation reform, and urban entrepreneurial executive density","authors":"Yuequn Cao,&nbsp;Chaoyang Tu,&nbsp;Chenlin Cui,&nbsp;Kexin Du","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.102104","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.102104","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As ecological civilization advances in China, the impacts of governmental efforts to implement green development policies—and the mechanisms through which they operate—warrant closer scrutiny. This study constructs a dataset on policy consistency by measuring the cosine similarity between municipal and central government work reports, and employs a long-difference model to examine how central–local environmental policy consistency affects urban entrepreneurial executive density under the “streamlining, delegation, and regulation” reform framework. The findings show that locally tailored, context-specific adjustments in policy consistency significantly increase urban entrepreneurial executive density. The effects also differ markedly between large cities and small- to medium-sized cities, with adjustment strategies varying by city size. While such tailoring promotes regional economic growth, achieving a more rational industrial structure requires stronger alignment between central and local policies. Further analysis indicates that, when adjusting policy consistency, local governments face a trade-off between fiscal decentralization and policy implementation, implying a need to balance “spending,” “earning,” and “saving.” The reform framework creates enabling conditions for flexible policy adjustments. Moreover, these adjustments improve firms’ earnings per share and market performance, strengthening profitability and growth potential. This, in turn, attracts entrepreneurial executives to locate in particular regions, consistent with a “voting with their feet” mechanism. By introducing “urban entrepreneurial executive density” as an indicator of policy responsiveness, this paper highlights that policy consistency shapes both resource allocation efficiency and executives’ locational choices, thereby influencing regional competitiveness. The study contributes to the literature on central–local relations and offers policy-relevant implications for environmental policymaking and the development of entrepreneurial executive talent in China.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"103 ","pages":"Article 102104"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145980349","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The cancellation risk of China's life insurance industry and its impact on the market","authors":"Shengnan Han","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102135","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102135","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Policy cancellation remains a significant risk to life insurer solvency in digitally mediated markets. This study aimed to model and forecast lapse-driven solvency erosion using behavioral, institutional, and macroeconomic predictors structured into a unified econometric cascade. The study analysed 1559,661 policyholder records across 880 firm-quarter observations from 11 Chinese life insurers (2013–2023). Behavioural metrics (entropy, latency, notification fatigue) were derived from weekly user logs. Panel GMM, SVAR, Cox models, and regime-switching threshold regressions were implemented in Stata SE 18.0. Models were evaluated via log-likelihood, AIC/BIC, Wald tests, impulse response functions, and forecast error variance decomposition. Entropy (HR = 1.44), latency (HR = 1.27), and notification fatigue (HR = 1.52) significantly predicted lapse hazard. Lapse rates rose from 4.98 % to 8.47 % across CRI tertiles. Interaction terms (NFI × ACR, HR = 1.62) intensified risk. In GMM, CRI had a marginal solvency effect of 0.124; reserve mismatch and lapse rate had an adverse impact (–0.112, –0.087). SVAR attributed 42.1 % of solvency variance to CRI shocks; IRF peaked at quarter 4 (IRF = 0.056, p = 0.0034). A CRI threshold of 0.56 yielded a post-threshold reversal (β = –0.064, p = 0.0043). Predictive AUC = 0.772 with 84.3% TPR and 42-day median lead time. Behavioral metrics embedded in digital platforms enable early detection of solvency risk and provide intervention windows.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"103 ","pages":"Article 102135"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146078879","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Foreign divestment and corporate ESG performance: Evidence from China","authors":"Chunxiao Si,&nbsp;Ying Xue","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102143","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102143","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Foreign divestment has attracted increasing attention in the context of shifting global investment dynamics, yet its implications for corporate sustainability remain under-explored. This study investigates how foreign equity withdrawals affect firms’ ESG performance, using panel data on Chinese listed companies from 2009 to 2022 and a staggered difference-in-differences approach. The results show that foreign divestment significantly weakens firms’ overall ESG performance, with particularly pronounced declines in the social and governance dimensions. In contrast, environmental scores tend to improve following divestment. Further investigation suggests that this environmental improvement is primarily driven by increased transparency in environmental disclosures rather than enhancements in green innovation. Foreign divestment undermines firms’ social performance by reducing their technological capacity and supply chain efficiency, although firms may respond by modestly increasing charitable donations as a reputational strategy to mitigate market concerns. Governance outcomes deteriorate as divestment leads to reduced institutional ownership and heightened governance risks. Heterogeneity analyses show that labor-intensive firms and those located in eastern China are more negatively affected, while state-owned enterprises demonstrate greater resilience, supported by stronger financing capabilities and stricter regulatory oversight.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"103 ","pages":"Article 102143"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147421546","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Postponing retirement under age discrimination and grandparenting","authors":"Leqing Huang","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.102111","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.102111","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To tackle the population aging and improve the sustainability of the pension system, the Chinese government proposes to postpone the statutory retirement age gradually. However, when implementing this policy in China, age discrimination in the job market and grandchild care culture are two potential concerns. Therefore, this paper builds a multi-period OLG model with these two crucial factors to provide a quantitative evaluation of the potential policy impacts on population growth, labor supply, and pension funds. The framework allows for endogenous fertility and age-specific grandparenting. Taking an increase in childcare costs as an exogenous input, the model can well predict declining fertility both in level and trend. The results of the counterfactual analysis suggest that postponing retirement alleviates the pressure on the pension system over the next 50 years by reducing the number of retirees and increasing the size of the labor force. However, importantly, a five-year retirement delay could reduce fertility by more than twenty percent, which will affect the size of the labor force decades later and put additional long-run demographic pressure on the pension system. Regarding the intensive margin, postponing retirement will bring an extra flow of labor supply from old workers, while maintaining a comparatively high level of the participation among young generations due to the fertility adjustments.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"103 ","pages":"Article 102111"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145904027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}