Using a large panel of Chinese listed firms over the period 1998–2014, we document strong evidence of investment inefficiency, which we explain through a combination of financing constraints and agency problems. Specifically, we argue that firms with cash flow below (above) their optimal level tend to under- (over-)invest as a consequence of financial constraints (agency costs). Furthermore, focusing on under-investing firms, we highlight that the sensitivities of abnormal investment to free cash flow rise with traditionally used measures of financing constraints, while for over-investing firms, the sensitivities increase with a wide range of firm-specific measures of agency costs.

Using a panel of Chinese listed firms over the period 1998–2015, we examine the extent to which liquidity impacts firms' acquisition decisions, method of payment choice, and performance following mergers. We observe that cash-rich firms are more likely to attempt acquisitions, especially if they are subject to tunneling. Next, we find that bidders with higher growth opportunities are less likely to use cash payments in acquisitions. This effect is stronger for financially constrained bidders, who face greater opportunity costs of holding cash. Our last set of results highlights the under-performance of cash acquisitions in both the short and long term.

We measure financial literacy and study its impact on household use of digital finance using the 2015 and 2017 China Household Finance Survey. We find that financial literacy significantly boosts the use of digital finance, including mobile payments, online borrowing, and online financial products. This effect is more pronounced for online borrowing and online financial products than for mobile payments. This result suggests that the impact of financial literacy increases with the complexity of digital finance. Furthermore, financial literacy plays a more important role in promoting the use of digital financial services among disadvantaged groups, such as families with low income and wealth, the elderly, and residents in rural areas, compared with their counterparts.

This paper uses a panel of 224,604 Chinese firms over the period 2004–2009 linked with a set of unique city-level financial development data to examine how financial development affects the way corporate inventory investment is financed. We find that financial development enhances the use of interest-bearing loans and discourages the use of trade credit in financing inventory investment. These effects are more pronounced after the 2007 property rights reform, as well as for privately-owned firms, small firms, firms with no political connections, and firms located in coastal regions. Our results are robust to using a variety of different specifications, as well as different measures of financial development and estimation methods.