We study the role of logistics information in the stock price discovery process. Using a proprietary dataset on parcel-level express delivery service records from one of the largest express service providers in China, we find that express delivery contains firm-specific information for stock pricing. A long/short portfolio of buying (selling) stocks with high (low) quarterly growth in the number of parcels sent by firms generates an 8.23 percent risk-adjusted annual return. The return predictability is more significantly driven by document, light, and business-to-business parcels, which reflects the intensity of a firm’s overall operations (rather than just sales growth), and by parcels sent to new addresses, which represents new business expansion. Echoing this return predictability, parcel growth also predicts firm growth, profitability, and earnings surprises. Finally, we provide evidence on return predictability associated with topology of logistic network identified by parcel delivery data.

By analyzing a hand-collected transaction-level dataset on the finance leases of China’s public firms for the period 2007–19, this article sheds light on China’s leasing market, the second largest in the world. We find that banks use their affiliated leasing firms to provide credit to clients in order to circumvent the government’s targeted credit tightening policy. In contrast to conventional view of regulatory arbitrage, our evidence shows that, rather than hiding risk and gambling for profit, banks-affiliated leasing firms have prudent risk control and efficient pricing. These bank-affiliated institutions are used by banks to play strategic role in relationship banking. Moreover, the ownership of the lessor also matters for the financing choice of the lessee.

We exploit information in sovereign CDS spreads and the international trade network to provide causal evidence of the propagation of global economic shocks. We show that trade links are an important source of shock transmission using the natural experiments of the Japanese tsunami and the COVID-19 lockdown in China. We then confirm more general and gradual information flows along the trade network by showing extensive country-level credit/equity cross-sectional return predictability. News about country fundamentals flows primarily from importers to exporters, depends on both direct and indirect links in the trade network, and is magnified by the exporting country's financial vulnerability.

During the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022), Chinese cities witnessed a paradox: residential land and new house prices surged while transaction volumes plummeted. We attribute this to local governments’ active price management through supply controls, land acquisitions by local government financing vehicles (LGFVs), and limits on new home sales permits. Cities more dependent on land sales and land-backed debt before the pandemic experienced greater price increases and price–volume divergence, with LGFVs buying more land at higher prices than other buyers. These interventions helped sustain fiscal financing but deepened developers’ financial distress, revealing unintended consequences of local governments’ fiscal strategies during downturns.