This paper provides an empirical examination of the regional banking structures in China and their effects on entrepreneurial activity. Using a panel of 27 provinces and four directly controlled municipalities from 1997 through 2008, we find that the presence of large banking institutions...

The pace of transition in China over the last two decades has led to great variation across the country in terms of institutional and financial development. In this paper, using a panel of Chinese provinces during the period 1993-2006, we empirically investigate the determinants of the...

This study treats firm productivity as an accumulation of productive intangibles and posits that stakeholder engagement associated with better corporate social performance helps develop such intangibles. We hypothesize that because shareholders factor improved productive efficiency into stock...

China is reforming its banking system, partially privatizing and permitting minority foreign ownership of three of the dominant 'big four' state-owned banks. This paper seeks to help predict the effects of this change by analysing the efficiency of virtually all Chinese banks in the years...

Using data from US labour market areas, we quantify empirical associations between entry by small firms and a vector of economic performance measures encompassing levels, volatilities and growth rates of several income and employment variables. Distinct and robust associations are found for net...

There have been profound changes in both political and economic institutions in China over the last twenty years.Moreover, the pace of transition has led to variation across the country in the level of development.In this paper, we use panel data for the Chinese provinces to study the role of...

This paper investigates the effects of focus versus diversification on bank performance using data on Chinese banks during the 1996-2006 period. We construct a new measure, economies of diversi-fication, and compare the results to those of the more conventional focus indices, which are based on...

Conventional wisdom in banking argues that diversification tends to reduce bank risk and improve performance, but the recent financial crisis suggests that aggressive diversification strategies may have resulted in increased risk taking and poor performance. This paper addresses this important...

This paper documents the financial and institutional developments of China during the past two decades, when China was successfully transformed from a rigid centralplanning economy to a dynamic market economy following its unique path. We empirically examine the relationship between financial...

This paper examines the effects of strategic alliances on non-financial firms bank loan financing. We construct several measures to capture firms alliance activities using the frequency of alliance activities, the prominence of the alliance partner and the relative networking position in the...