题目: Political Connection and Land Transaction: Evidence from China’s Stock Market
时间: 2018年12月6日（周四） 14:00-16:00
地点: 商学院武东路校区119
演讲者: Xiaoyu Zhang, Chinese University of Hong Kong
摘要: This paper investigates how political connection affects market response to the land transaction using a matched database of land transaction and Chinese listed companies. Our empirical results based on event study shows that land transactions by politically connected firms lead to negative short-run stock market performance. To deal with the endogeneity issue, using Xi’s anti-corruption campaign as a natural experiment, we employ a difference-in-difference (DID) approach and get consistent results. Moreover, we find significant heterogeneity among regions, firms, lands and time. Particularly, the negative effects are significantly larger when the land transaction takes place in a province with lower marketization level and more land illegality cases, by a firm without information transparency, by negotiation method, or in a period when market sentiment is low. We provide two possible explanations. That is, the market may believe that the land transaction by a politically connected firm might bring in uncertainty due to corruption or lead to investment and operation inefficiency. We find evidence that supports both hypothesizes.