Carbon trading is an important market mechanism to achieve carbon neutrality. This study explores the possible impact of carbon markets on the stock market performance of listed companies using data from 2013 to 2022 in China's carbon trading pilot regions. Using the event shock of delayed trading in the Chinese carbon market, we attempt to answer the question of the role of green innovation hidden under the compliance event. Results show that a 1% increase in carbon market turnover leads to an average decrease of CNY 0.123 in the company's stock price. Large-scale companies that have been listed for a short time and have poor green innovation capabilities are more vulnerable to the carbon market. Under delayed trading, firms with high green innovation capability will be profitable. By contrast, profitability is not reflected in low green innovation firms. Companies with low green innovation can reduce stock market performance owing to the carbon market's undersupply situation. Our study reveals the stock performance of different carbon trading entities under delayed trading, providing a realistic basis for firms to choose green innovation while helping to improve carbon trading market dynamics.

This paper investigates the information content of insider pledging and the forced sale of pledged shares using U.S. data. Contrary to warnings from proxy advisors and the media about insider pledging and suggestions for its prohibition, our findings show that insider pledging announcements do not negatively impact shareholder wealth. Firms with insider pledging experience positive one-year abnormal stock returns and higher future profitability after the disclosure of pledging, indicating that insider pledging signals a firm's better growth prospects. These positive abnormal returns observed after the disclosure of insider pledging are more pronounced in firms with better corporate governance and are associated with pledging by certain insiders with superior information. In addition, we find that the stock price does not significantly decline following the forced sale of pledged shares, indicating that the forced sale does not pose downside risks for shareholders. Overall, our results suggest that insider pledging is not detrimental to shareholder value in the U.S., contrary to findings reported in the literature on emerging markets.

This paper examines the impact of the local opioid epidemic on corporate innovation. Utilizing a large sample of U.S. public firms from 2003 to 2017, we find that firms located in counties with higher death rates caused by opioid overdoses are significantly less innovative as measured by their patenting activities. To establish causality, we exploit the state implementations of the Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) as quasi-experiments and an instrumented variable approach. We find suggestive evidence that the opioid epidemic hinders local firms' innovation by increasing healthcare costs, decreasing productivity, and through the exodus of local inventors.

We investigate the relation between tax avoidance and offshore activities using a new text-based measure for offshore activities based on Hoberg and Moon (2017, 2019). Our evidence shows that, although providing cross-border tax-avoidance opportunities, offshore activities reduce the marginal benefits of tax avoidance by introducing incremental foreign-market risk exposure. We find that the intensity of offshore sales of outputs is positively associated with the cash effective tax rate. The effect is stronger when the offshore sales rely on overseas production rather than domestic production, when the offshore sales are located in countries with higher economic uncertainty, when the firm has a lower ability to pass on shocks, and when the firm has less flexibility in adjusting tax strategies.

We study whether borrowers' opaque practices, such as tax aggressiveness, are affected by their lenders' engagement in mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Our findings suggest that borrowers' tax aggressiveness is negatively associated with bank mergers as banks increasingly rely on hard information in monitoring and lending practices following mergers. This relationship is more pronounced for borrowers that are more opaque in their information environments and have a greater need for credit, and when banks that have a greater intention to monitor borrowers and rely more on soft-information-based monitoring prior to the mergers. Our study contributes to the growing literature on whether and how bank consolidations affect borrowers' decision making.

In this study, we explore the impact of the establishment of environmental courts, an environmental justice system, on the cost of equity capital. Based on a quasi-natural experiment of establishing environmental courts in China, we find that they have a deterrent effect and reduce the cost of equity capital for heavily polluting firms in localities. We also find that a low proportion of managerial ownership, a low level of analyst attention, and high environmental uncertainty induce this deterrent effect. Furthermore, mechanism tests indicate that environmental courts enhance corporate environmental engagement and corporate ESG ratings, increase long-term institutional investor ownership, and reduce urban environmental violations to achieve a deterrent effect. The findings are more pronounced for the trial court sample, firms in cities with lower public participation in environmental protection, and firms with lower environmental information transparency. We also suggest the impacts and underlying mechanisms of the environmental justice system on the equity capital market, which is conducive to long-term planning by firm managers.