Journal of Asian Economics最新文献

{"title":"Local governmental environmental responsibility and corporate greenwashing: Quasi-experimental evidence from China","authors":"Chao Feng ,&nbsp;Ying Wang ,&nbsp;Xi Cheng","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101990","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101990","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The issue of greenwashing in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosure has addressed global concerns in recent years. However, how external stakeholders help alleviate greenwashing remains largely unclear. To explore this question, we adopt a difference-in-differences (DID) approach to study the effect of Natural Resources Accountability Audit (NRAA) on corporate greenwashing behavior. Drawing on the heavily polluting enterprise dataset over the period 2011–2021, this study shows that the implementation of NRAA significantly reduces greenwashing practices and ensures the reliability of corporate ESG disclosure. Intuitively, we find that environmental accountability of local government eliminates corporate greenwashing through stimulating more site visit of institutional investors, revealing the importance of external governance in shaping corporate strategies. Further analysis on corporate environmental irresponsibility verifies that enterprises curtail greenwashing practices for their pursuit of legitimacy. Additionally, this study reveals that NRAA performs more effectively for state-owned and politically connected enterprises and those in regions with a high level of marketization. The conclusions serve to extend signaling and legitimacy theory, supplying valuable implications for corporate ESG disclosure.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 101990"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144596583","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":"Dependence and hedging between green bonds and clean energy sub-markets in China: Insights from time–frequency wavelet approaches","authors":"Jing Deng ,&nbsp;Yejiao Liu ,&nbsp;Xiaoyun Xing","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101984","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101984","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines the time–frequency dependence between green bonds and clean energy subsector stocks in China, as well as the diversification strategies of relevant investors. Furthermore, this paper considers the impact of the pandemic on diversification strategies. Based on the wavelet coherence and wavelet phase difference analysis, the results indicate that the dependence among green bonds and clean energy varies significantly across scales and clean energy stock market sub-sectors. Besides, various clean energy subsector stocks lead green bonds in the long term. Then, this paper applies the wavelet-transformed data to estimate hedge ratios and hedge effectiveness at different wavelet scales. The clean energy categories and the investment horizon would affect the cost and hedging effectiveness when hedging clean energy stocks with green bonds, and the hedging effectiveness rises with the increase of the scales. Furthermore, the hedging costs vary significantly with various subsector stocks at all investment horizons in the aftermath of the pandemic. These results contribute to environmentally friendly investors and policymakers by considering the clean energy sub-categories at different frequencies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 101984"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144579828","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":"Optimizing public expenditure for knowledge-based growth: Evidence from provincial data in Vietnam","authors":"Thi Nguyet Nguyen","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101985","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101985","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Purpose</h3><div>This study examines the impact of public expenditure on science, technology, and education on provincial economic growth in Vietnam from 2002 to 2015. It explores how fiscal spending composition influences growth, with a focus on regional disparities and shifts across different economic reform periods.</div></div><div><h3>Design/methodology/approach</h3><div>The research employs the system GMM estimator to <em>control</em> endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity, analyzing panel data from all 63 provinces in Vietnam. It analyses renovation periods (2002–2007 and 2008–2015) and compares the effectiveness of fiscal spending between Northern and Southern provinces.</div></div><div><h3>Findings</h3><div>The results show that public expenditure on science, technology, and education significantly drives provincial economic growth, particularly during the later reform period (2008–2015). Regional analysis reveals divergent impacts: Northern provinces benefit more from education spending, while science and technology investments yield stronger growth effects in Southern provinces. Development investment consistently supports growth, whereas recurrent expenditure shows limited productivity.</div></div><div><h3>Research limitations/implications</h3><div>This study is constrained to a 13-year period and a single-country context. Future research could extend the analysis to other developing economies or longer timelines to capture broader analysis.</div></div><div><h3>Practical implications</h3><div>The findings offer actionable insights for policymakers in Vietnam and other developing countries. Recommendations include reallocating fiscal resources toward knowledge-based investments, prioritizing education spending in Northern regions, and boosting science and technology funding in the South. Enhancing the share of development-oriented expenditure over recurrent spending is critical for achieving sustainable economic growth.</div></div><div><h3>Originality/value</h3><div>This paper provides a pioneering empirical analysis of optimizing public expenditure for knowledge-based growth at the provincial level in Vietnam, bridging gaps in the literature on fiscal policy and regional economic disparities in developing economies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 101985"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144548430","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":"Environmental justice, ethical transformation: Environmental courts and corporate ESG performance","authors":"Huan-yu Cui,&nbsp;Yue-qun Cao","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101987","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101987","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study leverages the staggered implementation of specialized environmental courts throughout China as an exogenous shock to explore their influence on firms’ ESG performance. Analyzing a dataset of Chinese publicly listed firms from 2009 to 2022, the results demonstrate that (1) these courts enhance firms’ ESG outcomes. The key conclusions remain consistent even after addressing potential endogeneity issues and mitigating TWFE bias. (2) Low managerial ownership ratios, high analyst attention, and environmental uncertainty drive the effect. (3) The primary channel is that environmental courts enhance environmental penalties, deterring local firms and leading to stronger environmental behavior and improved access to bank loans. (4) The effect is more pronounced in polluting, environmentally information-transparent, financially constrained firms, and cities with deliberative courts, strong public participation, and efficient financial environments. Overall, this study offers new perspectives to the legal and financial discourse, reinforcing the broader role of environmental justice in shaping ethical corporate behavior.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 101987"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144501231","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 teaching pedagogy affect students’ non-cognitive skills","authors":"Liping Liao ,&nbsp;Jia Wu ,&nbsp;Xiang Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101986","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101986","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As an emerging teaching approach, group discussion is considered a strategy to promote students’ active involvement in the study. However, less is known about whether it is helpful for student skill formation. Using data on secondary school students and their teachers, we examine the effects of two pedagogies, namely, teaching in lectures and discussing in groups on students’ non-cognitive skills. We find that exposure to a high frequency of discussion in group pedagogy significantly lowers students’ psychological status, social skills, and adaptability, whereas the traditional teaching in the lecture approach has no effect. We show that the above negative effect is driven by students with low-educated parents, who are less likely to spend time with children, tutor children’s learning, and supervise children’s activities at home. Our results highlight that discussion in group pedagogy is not suitable for all students; its effect highly depends on parental inputs and parenting style.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 101986"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144523546","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":"Trade liberalization and elderly health: Evidence from micro-level data","authors":"Jing Liu ,&nbsp;Yun Zeng ,&nbsp;Haonan Dong ,&nbsp;Sinuo Lyu","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101983","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101983","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the context of an aging population, studying the impact of international trade liberalization on elderly health is an important topic. Based on the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) data from 2015 and 2018, combined with customs tariff data reflecting the trade liberalization level, and using geographical distance as an instrumental variable to address endogeneity issues, this paper empirically tests the impact of import trade liberalization on elderly health and its underlying mechanisms. The study reveals that import trade liberalization significantly improves elderly health, as measured by the prevalence of chronic diseases, and the results are robust. The effects are more pronounced in the elderly who are married males, aged 60–74, have a higher education level, poorer health and cognitive abilities, lower wealth, and reside in central, eastern, and coastal regions. Further mechanism analysis uncovers that import trade liberalization primarily improves elderly health through four pathways: increasing imports of medical products (e.g., medical devices and personal protective equipment), improving environmental quality, enhancing public healthcare service provision (e.g., regional government healthcare expenditure, the number of healthcare institutions, health technical personnel, and patient beds) and elevating the income levels of the elderly.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 101983"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144535649","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":"Gender wage gap of migrant workers and its root causes: Gender discrimination or labor endowment?","authors":"Lilian Li ,&nbsp;Mingwang Cheng ,&nbsp;Chunyan Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101988","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101988","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Curbing the widening of the gender wage gap is a critical goal for countries around the world. This paper empirically examines the determinants of employment and wage of migrant workers, and investigates the gender wage gap and its root causes. The study shows that the employment and wage of female migrants are significantly lower than that of male over the period 2015–2020. The modified Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition demonstrates that the gender wage gap among migrant workers stems mainly from discrimination effect rather than endowment effect, indicating the existence of employment discrimination against females in labor market. In addition, the gender wage gap among migrant workers has been widening with the increase of their wage. The modified quantile decomposition reveals that the gender wage gap at different wage levels is primarily due to the discrimination effect, which is higher in the high-paid group. This study contributes to the literature on gender wage gap by developing the revised decomposition approach to identify discrimination effect and endowment effect.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 101988"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144535650","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":"Measuring the onshore and offshore RMB markets: A test for CNY, CNH and CNT","authors":"Kuo-chun Yeh ,&nbsp;Tai-kuang Ho ,&nbsp;Ya-chi Lin","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101981","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101981","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The renminbi (RMB) offshore market in Taiwan began on September 1, 2014 with a cross-strait MOU, completing the RMB market over mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Due to subsequent political and economic disruptions, such as the global economic tsunami followed by mainland China’s stock market crash and RMB exchange rate reform in 2015, as well as failure of the Service Trade Agreement between Taiwan and mainland China in 2016, it is now appropriate to explore arbitrage opportunities among the three RMB markets. This paper evaluates the convergence and divergence of RMB market returns by the sigma-convergence (or log t) test for a more precise indication of market return convergence than the traditional unit root test. Our result shows mainland China’s financial linkages with RMB markets in Hong Kong and Taiwan, while mainland China’s growing influence has not yet reached the levels of traditional financial centers. Policy implications for the RMB arbitrage are also provided.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 101981"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144481593","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 impact of cross-border capital flows macro-prudential management policy on bank credit","authors":"Yuanmiao Cui ,&nbsp;Xia Fang ,&nbsp;Xuyiyang Hu ,&nbsp;Kaina Fu ,&nbsp;Zhenyu Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101979","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101979","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the impact of cross-border capital flow-oriented macro-prudential policies (MPPs) on banking credit dynamics through a quasi-natural experiment encompassing 110 countries from 2000 to 2020. The findings reveal that MPPs significantly mitigate banking credit growth, with more pronounced effects during the post-financial-crisis period. These policies act through commodity prices and exchange rate movements by tempering capital inflows, thereby reducing excessive credit expansion and curbing systemic financial risks. The efficacy of MPPs is critically shaped by regulatory frameworks, the degree of economic liberalization, and the concentration dynamics within banking sectors, collectively underscoring the indispensable role of institutional robustness and competitive market mechanisms in policy implementation. Furthermore, the study uncovers an asymmetrical policy impact, with MPPs demonstrating enhanced efficacy in countries characterized by more advanced financial development. These results have significant policy implications, emphasizing the strategic value of targeted macro-prudential measures in three crucial areas: stabilizing credit cycles, enhancing financial system resilience, and preventing the cross-border contagion of financial vulnerabilities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 101979"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144331163","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":"Understanding the product structure of exporters: The role of intellectual property protection in export origins","authors":"Xiaotian Hu ,&nbsp;Xiaopeng Yin","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101980","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101980","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Adjusting the structure of export products is crucial for exporters to respond to export market competition and cost changes. The existing literature has identified firm-level factors, such as productivity, and industry-level factors, such as trade liberalisation, as important determinants of an exporter’s export product structure. However, the institutional quality has received less attention. Using data from Chinese manufacturing exporters from 2000 to 2007, we examine the impact of province-industry level intellectual property protection (IPP) in export origins on product-adding and product-dropping rates of manufacturing exporters from the perspective of institutional quality. We employed an instrumental variable approach to solve the endogeneity problem of the IPP variable. The findings demonstrate that strengthening IPP at origins raises exporters’ product-adding and product-dropping rates, conditional on their production. Exporters can achieve this promotional effect on product-adding and product-dropping rates by transforming towards more downstream production and integrating more vertically along their value chains. Additionally, strengthening IPP can increase the product-adding rate of exporters by encouraging more innovative activities and foreign direct investment absorption and can raise the product-dropping rate by reducing the varieties of imported intermediate goods. In the heterogeneity analysis, we find this product structure effect is insignificant for digital trade exporters. Our findings provide important policy implications for IPP reforms towards export upgrading.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 101980"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144563861","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}