Journal of Asian Economics最新文献

{"title":"FinTech adoption and firm-level export: Evidence from China","authors":"Yulong Cai,&nbsp;Qiqi Fan,&nbsp;Tong Yang,&nbsp;Xun Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102273","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102273","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper provides micro-level evidence on how FinTech adoption influences firm-level export behavior in China during 2011-2015, a period marked by the rapid expansion of digital financial services. We hypothesize that FinTech mitigates credit constraints and enhances financial inclusion, thereby facilitating firms’ participation in export markets. Combining regional measures of FinTech usage with detailed firm-level export data, we find that greater FinTech adoption significantly promotes firm-level exports, with its effect more evident at the extensive margin. To address potential endogeneity, we employ an instrumental variable constructed from historical information on the planned optical-fiber network layout in the 1990s. The IV results corroborate the baseline findings and indicate economically and statistically significant effects. Further analysis reveals that the positive impact of FinTech adoption is stronger for smaller firms and in regions with weaker informal finance or lower levels of social trust, underscoring its role in easing financing frictions. This study contributes to the literature by identifying FinTech as an important driver of firm behavior and engagement in international markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"106 ","pages":"Article 102273"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149142733","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":"Does county-to-district reform promote foreign direct investment inflows? — Empirical evidence from China","authors":"Yuanlei Liu,&nbsp;Na Han,&nbsp;Jiayue Wang,&nbsp;Meng Qin","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102272","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102272","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The county-to-district reform implemented by local governments has played a key role in eliminating regional market barriers, especially barriers between existing urban districts and former county areas converted to new urban districts. This paper employs the policy shock of the county-to-district reform as a quasi-natural experiment for constructing a unified regional market. It uses panel data from over 200 prefecture-level cities in China from 2002 to 2015 to estimate its impact on attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The empirical results show that the construction of a regional integrated market significantly improves the amount of foreign investment, and this effect exhibits notable heterogeneity conditional on the level of digital financial inclusion and the relative economic strength between the municipal district and the annexed county. The mechanism research indicates that prefecture-level cities that implement the county-to-district reform attract FDI through four channels: Firstly, it accelerates the construction of information infrastructure. Secondly, it enhances the level of human capital. Thirdly, it strengthens urban innovation capabilities. And the last mechanism is the increased land leasing and allocation, which supports the development of the real economy. These mechanisms work together to improve production efficiency and investment returns while reducing business and production costs. Reform-induced FDI markedly improves local firms' profit margins, though with no significant short-run effect on aggregate industrial output or total factor productivity. These findings clarify how administrative restructuring shapes FDI location choices and offer policy implications for regional governance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"106 ","pages":"Article 102272"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149142731","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":"Capital market access and intra-firm income inequality: Evidence from China","authors":"Baocong Huang,&nbsp;Hongbao Yu","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102274","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102274","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the impact of corporate listings on internal income inequality within firms and its underlying mechanisms, using data from Chinese A-share IPOs between 2005 and 2022. The study finds that going public significantly reduces intra-firm income inequality; specifically, compared to non-listed firms, listed firms experience an average reduction in income inequality of approximately 5.7%. The mitigating effect of IPOs on income inequality is most pronounced in firms with high capital intensity and high wage levels. These findings remain robust after altering the measurement of income inequality, altering the sample estimation period, conducting placebo tests, and excluding alternative explanations. Mechanism analysis indicates that going public alleviates financing constraints, increases average employee compensation, raises the labor income share and social security contribution levels, and reduces intra-firm inequality through increased fixed asset investment and profit-sharing channels. These findings deepen the understanding of the effects of capital market access on corporate pay gaps and economic inequality, particularly regarding the distributional effects of capital markets in developing economies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"106 ","pages":"Article 102274"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149142732","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":"Weathering the storm along the global supply chain: Evidence from China","authors":"Qing Liu,&nbsp;Lin Tang,&nbsp;Deting Jia,&nbsp;Kedong Shu","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102268","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102268","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>With global climate change accelerating, extreme weather has become one of the most salient external shocks to the stability of global value chains. We incorporate FactSet Revere supply chain data with EM-DAT disaster data and construct a firm–location–year panel based on the overseas supply chain relationships of Chinese A-share listed firms over 2010–2023, and then examine the association between extreme weather and the disruption and construction of firms’ overseas supply chain relationships at supplier/customer locations. We find that extreme weather occurring at partner location is significantly positively associated with the disruption of firms’ supply chain relationships with local trading partners. This finding remains robust after further controlling for region-by-year fixed effects and applying propensity score matching and entropy balancing to mitigate potential omitted-variable and sample-selection biases. Heterogeneity analyses reveal that the positive association between extreme weather and supply chain disruption is concentrated among overseas customer relationships and is more pronounced for firms with higher supply chain concentration and for non-state-owned firms. Across disaster types, the positive association is stronger for floods and extreme temperatures than for droughts. Our analysis of buffering effects suggest that the positive association is weaker for firms with higher ex ante net trade credit financing and greater internal financial buffers. Further analysis indicates that extreme weather is not only significantly positively associated with the disruption of existing supply chain relationships but also with the construction of new relationships in affected locations. Such relationship construction primarily reflects the introduction of new trading partners rather than the restoration of previously disrupted relationships.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"106 ","pages":"Article 102268"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149142736","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 dual control system of total energy consumption and energy intensity: A catalyst or a stumbling block for enterprise green technology innovation?","authors":"Houyin Long,&nbsp;Youan Wang,&nbsp;Yaoyao Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102257","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102257","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Does China’s dual control system over total energy consumption and energy intensity discourage firms by tightening resource constraints, or is it associated with green upgrading? This paper studies that question using panel data on A-share listed firms from 2011 to 2022 and a generalized difference-in-differences design that exploits cross-firm variation in policy-induced energy pressure. The results indicate that stronger policy-induced energy pressure is positively associated with enterprise green technology innovation. This association is stronger for firms with higher executive green cognition and total factor productivity, and in settings with stronger environmental taxation and government environmental subsidies. The estimated association is also more pronounced among state-owned enterprises, large firms, manufacturing firms, firms in eastern China, and firms outside power-rationing areas. Additional evidence suggests that green technology innovation is negatively associated with carbon intensity, consistent with a role for firm-level innovation in the transition from energy dual control to carbon dual control.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"106 ","pages":"Article 102257"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149142726","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":"Big data comprehensive pilot zone and firms’ ESG performance: Synergistic effect of “dual-pilot” policies","authors":"Kai Zhao,&nbsp;Yu Gao,&nbsp;Benhao Ji,&nbsp;Xiaohe Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102267","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102267","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using panel data on Chinese A-share listed firms from 2010 to 2021, this study examines whether and how the National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone Policy improves corporate ESG performance. We construct a firm-level ESG index by combining HeXun environmental and social responsibility scores with a PCA-based corporate governance index, and identify the policy effect using a multi-period difference-in-differences model based on city-level pilot implementation. The baseline results show that the policy increases firms’ ESG performance by 0.2201 units, significant at the 1% level. The results remain robust across a battery of robustness checks. Mechanism tests indicate that the policy mainly promotes ESG performance through three channels: efficiency conversion, technology embedding, and information governance. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the policy effect is stronger among non-state-owned enterprises, high-tech firms, firms located in eastern China, and firms in the growth and decline stages. Beyond evaluating a single digital-economy policy, this study further documents a “dual-pilot” synergy between the Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone Policy and the Innovative City Pilot Policy. The “dual-pilot” effect remains significantly positive, with an estimated coefficient of 0.1569. In addition, the transition from single-pilot to “dual-pilot” status is associated with a 0.1865-unit increase in ESG performance. Moreover, policy sequencing matters: cities that first establish Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zones and subsequently become “dual-pilot” cities experience stronger ESG improvements, whereas the reverse sequence produces no significant effect. Further spatial spillover tests show that the “dual-pilot” policy and the “Big Data first” sequence also generate positive spillover effects on neighboring cities. These findings contribute to the literature on digital-economy policy, ESG determinants, and policy synergy by showing that digital infrastructure and innovation-oriented institutions jointly shape firms’ sustainable transformation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"106 ","pages":"Article 102267"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149142727","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 digital innovation in shaping bond financing costs: Evidence from Chinese banks","authors":"Li Wang,&nbsp;Cong Zhang,&nbsp;Zhiwu Hong","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102270","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102270","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Digital innovation in commercial banks is reshaping traditional operating models in the bond market, transforming business practices and product development, enhancing information transparency, and strengthening competitive mechanisms to improve financing conditions. Using data from 94 commercial banks, this paper employs text analysis and panel regression models to examine whether and how digital innovation helps to reduce the bond financing costs of commercial banks in China. Our empirical results reveal that commercial banks’ digital innovation has a significant and robust effect on reducing financing costs: a one-unit increase in the risk-constrained digital innovation index reduces bond financing costs by 0.582%. The effect is particularly pronounced for local banks, non-state-owned banks, banks with smaller shadow banking scale, and during the period following the Chinese government’s release of the “Action Plan for Promoting the Development of Big Data” in 2015. In addition, we obtain significant evidence supporting the hypothesis that digital innovation reduces the bond financing costs of commercial banks by enhancing reputation and suppressing competitive distortion in the bond market.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"106 ","pages":"Article 102270"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149142735","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":"A Korean macroeconomic database for data-rich policy analysis and U.S.–Korea dependence","authors":"Changryong Baek,&nbsp;Seung Hyun Moon,&nbsp;Seunghyeon Lee","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102265","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102265","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We introduce KRED (Korea Research Economic Database), a FRED-MD-compatible monthly macroeconomic database for Korea designed for data-rich policy analysis and cross-country comparison. KRED contains 125 monthly series from ECOS, KOSIS, and administrative labor-market sources, with coverage back to 1960. Using monthly data over 2009:06–2025:12, we construct four common factors that summarize interest rates and term spreads, industrial activity, housing permits, and the labor market. Their factor-based diffusion indices trace the different timing of interest-rate, industrial, housing, and labor-market developments in Korea. We then use KRED in two empirical applications. First, a factor-augmented VAR shows that U.S. monetary tightening weakens Korean real activity and is followed by an increase in the Korean policy rate. The broader KRED information set also substantially attenuates the anomalous positive CPI price-level response generated by a small VAR, and the reductions in the average and peak responses remain robust across bootstrap designs that allow for residual dependence. Second, a grouped U.S.–Korea tensor autoregression shows that cross-country dependence is concentrated in financially oriented blocks. Transmission from U.S. financial conditions to Korea is stronger than in the reverse direction, whereas spillovers through real activity and housing are weaker and less persistent. KRED thus provides a transparent public database for Korean macroeconomic research and a useful foundation for policy analysis and comparative work on macro-financial dependence in Asia.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"106 ","pages":"Article 102265"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149142730","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":"Editorial preface: Intercity and intracity transportation","authors":"Keyang Li,&nbsp;Yu Qin,&nbsp;Jubo Yan","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102248","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102248","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"106 ","pages":"Article 102248"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149205015","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":"Labor mobility and corporate labor investment efficiency: Evidence from China","authors":"Dongmin Kong,&nbsp;Jiuyi Zhang,&nbsp;Lihua Liu,&nbsp;Wenhui Huang","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102266","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.asieco.2026.102266","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines whether labor market institutions affect firms’ labor investment efficiency. Exploiting the staggered implementation of hukou system reform across Chinese cities as a quasi-experimental setting, we find that hukou reform significantly improves corporate labor investment efficiency by reducing deviations between actual and predicted net hiring. Mechanism analyses suggest that this improvement is consistent with the view that hukou reform expands effective labor supply, enhances urban employment absorption capacity, and alleviates labor-market frictions. Further cross-sectional analyses reveal stronger effects among manufacturing firms, larger firms, firms located in more developed regions and firms operating in more competitive industries. These findings highlight the importance of labor-market institutions in shaping firms’ employment decisions and provide evidence that reducing mobility barriers can improve labor investment allocation efficiency.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"106 ","pages":"Article 102266"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149142728","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}