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This paper takes the Shanghai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect as a quasi-natural experiment and investigates the impact of capital market liberalization on the corporate debt maturity structure. It also aims to provide some policy implications for corporate debt financing and further liberalization of the capital market in China.

Employing the exogenous event of Shanghai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect and using the data of Chinese A-share firms from 2010 to 2020, this study constructs a difference-in-differences model to examine the relationship between capital market liberalization and corporate debt maturity structure. To validate the results, this study performed several robustness tests, including the parallel test, the placebo test, the Heckman two-stage regression and the propensity score matching.

This paper finds that capital market liberalization has significantly increased the proportion of long-term debt of target firms. Further analyses suggest that the impact of capital market liberalization on the debt maturity structure is more pronounced for firms with lower management ownership and non-Big 4 audit. Channel tests show that capital market liberalization improves firms’ information environment and curbs self-interested management behavior.

This research provides empirical evidence for the consequences of capital market liberalization and enriches the literature on the determinants of corporate debt maturity structure. Further this study makes a reference for regulators and financial institutions to improve corporate financing through the governance role of capital market liberalization.

Global climate change characterized by an increase in temperature has become the focus of attention all over the world. China is a sensitive and significant area of global climate change. This paper specifically aims to examine the association between agricultural productivity and the climate change by using China’s provincial agricultural input–output data from 2000 to 2019 and the climatic data of the ground meteorological stations.

The authors used the three-stage spatial Durbin model (SDM) model and entropy method for analysis of collected data; further, the authors also empirically tested the climate change marginal effect on agricultural productivity by using ordinary least square and SDM approaches.

The results revealed that climate change has a significant negative effect on agricultural productivity, which showed significance in robustness tests, including index replacement, quantile regression and tail reduction. The results of this study also indicated that by subdividing the climatic factors, annual precipitation had no significant impact on the growth of agricultural productivity; further, other climatic variables, including wind speed and temperature, had a substantial adverse effect on agricultural productivity. The heterogeneity test showed that climatic changes ominously hinder agricultural productivity growth only in the western region of China, and in the eastern and central regions, climate change had no effect.

The findings of this study highlight the importance of various social connections of farm households in designing policies to improve their responses to climate change and expand land productivity in different regions. The study also provides a hypothetical approach to prioritize developing regions that need proper attention to improve crop productivity.

The paper explores the impact of climate change on agricultural productivity by using the climatic data of China. Empirical evidence previously missing in the body of knowledge will support governments and researchers to establish a mechanism to improve climate change mitigation tools in China.

This method will become a new development trend in subgrade structure design for high speed railways.

This paper summarizes the structural types and design methods of subgrade bed for high speed railways in China, Japan, France, Germany, the United States and other countries based on the study and analysis of existing literature and combined with the research results and practices of high speed railway subgrade engineering at home and abroad.

It is found that in foreign countries, the layered reinforced structure is generally adopted for the subgrade bed of high speed railways, and the unified double-layer or multi-layer structure is adopted for the surface layer of subgrade bed, while the simple structure is adopted in China; in foreign countries, different inspection parameters are adopted to evaluate the compaction state of fillers according to their respective understanding and practice, while in China, compaction coefficient, subsoil coefficient and dynamic deformation modulus are adopted for such evaluation; in foreign countries, the subgrade top deformation control method, the subgrade bottom deformation control method, the subsurface fill strength control method are mainly adopted in subgrade bed structure design of high speed railways, while in China, dynamic deformation control of subgrade surface and dynamic strain control of subgrade bed bottom layer is adopted in the design. However, the cumulative deformation of subgrade caused by train cyclic vibration load is not considered in the existing design methods.

This paper introduces a new subgrade structure design method based on whole-process dynamics analysis that meets subgrade functional requirements and is established on the basis of the existing research at home and abroad on prediction methods for cumulative deformation of subgrade soil.

The operation state of lithium-ion battery for vehicle is unknown and the remaining life is uncertain. In order to improve the performance of battery state prediction, in this paper, a joint estimation method of state of charge (SOC) and state of health (SOH) for lithium-ion batteries based on multi-scale theory is designed.

In this paper, a joint estimation method of SOC and SOH for lithium-ion batteries based on multi-scale theory is designed. The venin equivalent circuit model and fast static calibration method are used to fit the relationship between open-circuit voltage and SOC, and the resistance and capacitance parameters in the model are identified based on exponential fitting method. A battery capacity model for SOH estimation is established. A multi-time scale EKF filtering algorithm is used to estimate the SOC and SOH of lithium-ion batteries.

The SOC and SOH changes in dynamic operation of lithium-ion batteries are accurately predicted so that batteries can be recycled more effectively in the whole vehicle process.

A joint estimation method of SOC and SOH for lithium-ion batteries based on multi-scale theory is accurately predicted and can be recycled more effectively in the whole vehicle process.

Knowledge sharing has entered the stage of knowledge payment with the typical models of paid Q&A, live session, paid subscription, course column and community service. Numerous knowledge suppliers have begun to pour into the knowledge payment market, and users' willingness to pay for premium content has increased. However, the academic research on knowledge payment has just begun.

In this paper, the authors searched several bibliographic databases using keywords such as “knowledge payment”, “paid Q&A”, “pay for answer”, “social Q&A”, “paywall” and “online health consultation” and selected papers from aspects of research scenes, research topics, etc. Finally, a total of 116 articles were identified for combing studies.

This study found that in the early research, scholars paid attention to the definition of knowledge payment concept and the discrimination of typical models. With the continuous enrichment of research literature, the research direction has gradually been refined into three main branches from the perspective of research objects, i.e. knowledge provider, knowledge demander and knowledge payment platform.

This paper focuses on discussing and sorting out the key research issues from these three research genres. Finally, the authors found out conflicting and contradictory research results and research gaps in the existing research and then put forward the urgent research topics.

Hotels are immersed in a very competitive environment and hoteliers have to plan and redesign their strategies to stay in the hospitality industry while faced with a steady rise in competition. Hoteliers can employ horizontal differentiation strategies and pricing decisions to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors. The goal of our work is to analyse the effect of pricing and horizontal differentiation strategy of a hotel on its online reputation and to analyse if the hotel location and agglomeration of competitors moderates their relationship with online reputation.

With a sample of 264 hotels from Paris, an empirical study is developed that aims to analyse, using regression techniques, the impact of price, differentiation, location and competitive environment on online ratings given by consumers in the hospitality context.

The paper provides empirical evidence of how a good location improves the online reputation of a company and how pricing strategies should take into account the location and number of competitors since a good location allows premium prices to be valued positively by consumers while an inappropriate location can produce the opposite effect. Depending on location, the number of competitors can intensify or reduce the effect of price on online reputation. Finally, online reputation only benefits from horizontal differentiation strategies when the degree of agglomeration is low.

This work provides insights about how hotels can strengthen their online reputation through pricing and differentiation strategies, incorporating elements of their environment such as location and competition in this decision-making process.

酒店處於一個競爭非常激烈的經營環境中，營運者要面對競爭日益加劇的挑戰，在這情況下，他們必須計劃並重新設計其策略，以在酒店服務業中仍能繼續其業務。營運者可採用水平分化策略和定價決策，以取得比同業更大的競爭優勢。本研究旨在分析，若酒店採用價格及水平差異之策略，這對它們的網上聲譽會起什麽效應；研究亦探討酒店所處的位置及競爭者的凝聚會否減弱其與網上聲譽的關係。

研究樣本為來自巴黎264間酒店。研究人員採用實驗研究法，透過迴歸分析法，去分析在酒店服務的背景下，價格、差異化、地點和競爭環境如何影響消費者所給予的網上評分。

本文提供了經驗性證據，證明良好的地點會改善公司的網絡聲譽； 同時，亦證明釐定價格策略時，經營者應考慮競爭者的位置和數目，這是因為良好的地點會讓消費者正面評價溢價，而不合適的地點則會導致相反的效應。根據所在的地點，消費者的數目能增強或減弱價格對網絡聲譽的影響。最後，本文也證明了網絡聲譽只會在凝聚程度低的情況下才會受惠於水平分化策略。

本研究提供啟示，使我們更明瞭酒店如何能透過價格及差異化策略，同時亦透過把它們的環境元素如地點和競爭等納入決策程序中，來強化網絡聲譽。

Independent directors are important corporate decision participants and makers. Based on the Chinese cultural background, this paper interprets the listing order of independent directors as independent directors’ status, exploring their influence on the corporate research and development (R&D) behavior.

This paper studies A-share listed firms in China from 2008 to 2018 as the sample. The main method is ordinary least square (OLS) regression. We also use other methods to deal with endogenous problems, such as the firm fixed effect method, change model method, two-stage instrumental variable method, and Heckman two-stage method.

(1) Higher independent directors’ status attribute to more effective exertion of supervision and consultation function, and positively enhance the corporate R&D investment. The increase of the independent director’ status by one standard deviation will increase the R&D investment by 4.6%. (2) The above effect is more influential in firms with stronger traditional culture atmosphere, higher information opacity and higher performance volatility. (3) High-status independent directors promote R&D investment by improving the scientificity of R&D evaluation and reducing information asymmetry. (4) The enhancing effect of independent director’ status on R&D investment is positively associated with the firm’s patent output and market value.

This paper contributes to understanding the relationship between the independent directors’ status and their duty execution from an embedded cultural background perspective. The findings of the study enlighten the improvement of corporate governance efficiency and the healthy development of the capital market.

The aim of this paper is to provide additional insights on the association between real earnings management (REM) and crash risk, particularly from the perspective of an emerging market economy. It also examines the moderation role that internal and external corporate governance may play in this area.

Relying on archival data from the RESSET and CSMAR databases over a timeframe from 2010 to 2018 of China listed company, the authors test the hypotheses by regressing common measures of crash risk on the treatment variable (REM) and crash risk control variables identified in the prior crash risk literature. The authors also introduce monitoring proxies (internal controls as an internal governance and institutional ownership as an external governance) and assess how effective internal and external governance moderate the relation between REM and stock price crash risk.

The results suggest firms with higher REM have a significantly greater stock price crash risk, and that this association is mitigated by external monitoring. That is, greater institutional ownership, particularly pressure insensitive owners, mitigates the impact of REM on stock price crash risk. However, internal control does not mitigate the association between REM and stock price crash risk.

Following the passage of the Sarbanes–Oxley (SOX) Act, prior research has documented an increase in the use of REM and a positive association between REM and cash risk. The authors demonstrate that they persist in one of the largest emerging markets where institutional regulations, market conditions and corporate behaviors are different from those in developed markets. Also, the assessment of the moderation effect of internal and external governance mechanisms could have meaningful implications for investors and regulators in Chinese and other emerging markets.

The article investigates different types of strategies for managing user-generated content (UGC) and provides some insights into their implications.

A unique sample of Italian hotels with current and prospective customers in the digital environment is investigated. A taxonomy of user-provider interactions mediated by UGC is developed. A mixed approach was designed to meet the study aims. Firstly, an exploratory factor analysis was performed in order to illuminate different strategies of UGC and electronic word-of-mouth (E-WOM) management. Secondly, a cluster analysis was implemented in order to explain hoteliers' behavior toward users' contents.

The study results suggested the existence of three clusters, which reflected three different types of interactions between hotels and customers in the digital domain. Interestingly, most of Italian hotels were found to adopt a reductionist approach to UGC and E-WOM management, turning out to be ineffective to exploit them for the purpose of quality improvement and hospitality service excellence.

Hotels were found to be largely unaware of the importance of UGC and web-based communication with customers to improve their digital business strategy. Tailored management approaches are needed to realize the full potential of hotels' online content responsiveness for the purpose of value co-creation and service co-production.

This is one of the first studies investigating the strategic and management perspectives embraced by hotels to handle their interactions with customers in the digital arena.