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With the continuous deepening of China's mixed-ownership reform, the participants in the reform have gradually expanded from state-owned enterprises to private enterprises. Whether state-owned equity participation in private enterprises can facilitate the development of environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance in private enterprises is a question that needs urgent examination. This study aims to investigate the impact of state-owned equity participation on the ESG performance of private enterprises.

Using Chinese listed companies as the research sample, this study uses econometric methods such as multiple regression to analyze the relationship between state-owned equity and the ESG performance of private enterprises. Additionally, it explores the underlying mechanisms and influencing factors of this relationship.

There is a significant inverted U-shaped relationship between state-owned equity and the ESG performance of private enterprises. Mechanism analysis reveals that resource effects and governance effects play a mediating role in this nonlinear relationship. Furthermore, the authors find that environmental regulation and managers' attention to the environment positively moderate the relationship between state-owned equity participation and ESG performance.

A reasonable equity structure is crucial for enhancing corporate ESG performance. Moderate state-owned equity participation helps to leverage resource integration and governance advantages, which will assist private enterprises in maximizing ESG performance and achieving sustainable development.

In advancing the process of mixed-ownership reform, the government should maintain an appropriate proportion of state-owned equity to avoid excessive intervention in enterprise decision-making. At the same time, it should ensure that enterprises can genuinely undertake their social and environmental responsibilities while pursuing economic benefits. This is of great significance for promoting sustainable economic and social development.

This study integrates state-owned equity, ESG and nonlinear relationships into a single research framework. It explores the internal mechanisms and influencing factors of their relationship, overcoming the limitations of previous studies and provides a new perspective for understanding the impact of state-owned equity on corporate ESG performance.

Does the history of the bureaucratic system, along with the establishment of the Great Wall during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1911), affect firm behavior across the borderlands of the Great Wall?

The Ming and Qing dynasties built a centralized administrative system in the borderlands on the south side of the Great Wall, in contrast to the “feudal lordship” system on the north side. Employing a regression discontinuity analysis framework with the Great Wall as a geographical discontinuity, we examine the long-run effects of the Great Wall on firms’ earnings management.

Using a large sample of nonlisted firms in the central core frontier region, we show that the earnings management of firms in the region south of the Great Wall is significantly curtailed compared with firms in the north of it, and this effect is more pronounced for non-SOEs. Our findings are robust to a battery of tests to account for alternative explanations.

Overall, by emphasizing the role of institutions, like legal system, shaped in history on firms’ earnings management, this study sheds new light on institutional determinants of firms’ behaviors in earnings information disclosure.

First, we enrich our understanding of the institutional determinants of firms’ financial reporting outcomes. Second, our findings shed new light on the long-term effects of historical ruling styles on modern corporate behavior.

By studying the green development efficiency (GDE) of 33 cities in the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian in China, this study strives to conduct an analysis of the sustainable practices implemented in these developed regions, and derive valuable insights that can foster the promotion of green transformation.

First, the urban green development system (GDS) was decomposed into the economic benefit subsystem (EBS), social benefit subsystem (SBS), and pollution control subsystem (PCS). Then, a mixed network SBM model was proposed to evaluate the GDE during 20152020, with Moran’s I and Bootstrap truncated regression model subsequently applied to measure the spatial characteristics and driving factors of efficiency.

Subsystem efficiency presents a distribution trend of PCS > EBS > SBS. There is a particular spatial aggregation effect in EBS efficiency, whereas SBS and PCS efficiencies have no significant spatial autocorrelation. Furthermore, urbanization level contributes significantly to the efficiency of all subsystems; industrial structure, energy consumption, and technological innovation play a crucial role in EBS and SBS; external openness is a pivotal factor in SBS; and environmental regulation has a significant effect on PCS.

This study further decomposes the black box of GDS into subsystems including the economy, society, and environment. Additionally, by employing a mixed network SBM model and Bootstrap truncated regression model to investigate efficiency and its driving factors from the subsystem perspective, it endeavors to derive more detailed research conclusions and policy implications.