Chun Yuan, Chunxiao Geng, Zhe Li, Yu Sheng, Jie Lv
{"title":"Administrative division adjustments and stock price comovement: Evidence from the city–county mergers in China","authors":"Chun Yuan, Chunxiao Geng, Zhe Li, Yu Sheng, Jie Lv","doi":"10.1016/j.cjar.2022.100235","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Under the background of Chinese market segmentation, whether government-led administrative division adjustments can promote regional economic integration is a practical issue. Taking interregional firms’ stock price comovement as a micro measurement of regional integration, this paper investigates the regional integration effect of administrative division adjustments, i.e., city–county mergers. We find that stock price comovement between county-level and municipal district-level firms in the merged counties and municipal districts significantly improve after city–county mergers, particularly in regions with a higher degree of market segmentation and lower degree of marketization. We further find that the increase in stock price comovement caused by city–county mergers emerges from the increase in comovement of real activities between firms in the merged counties and municipal districts. Taken together, our results suggest that government-led administrative division adjustments effectively promote regional integration.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45688,"journal":{"name":"China Journal of Accounting Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1755309122000156/pdfft?md5=e259ad12f58236db9966509c8017cdaf&pid=1-s2.0-S1755309122000156-main.pdf","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"China Journal of Accounting Research","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1755309122000156","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
Under the background of Chinese market segmentation, whether government-led administrative division adjustments can promote regional economic integration is a practical issue. Taking interregional firms’ stock price comovement as a micro measurement of regional integration, this paper investigates the regional integration effect of administrative division adjustments, i.e., city–county mergers. We find that stock price comovement between county-level and municipal district-level firms in the merged counties and municipal districts significantly improve after city–county mergers, particularly in regions with a higher degree of market segmentation and lower degree of marketization. We further find that the increase in stock price comovement caused by city–county mergers emerges from the increase in comovement of real activities between firms in the merged counties and municipal districts. Taken together, our results suggest that government-led administrative division adjustments effectively promote regional integration.
期刊介绍:
The focus of the China Journal of Accounting Research is to publish theoretical and empirical research papers that use contemporary research methodologies to investigate issues about accounting, corporate finance, auditing and corporate governance in the Greater China region, countries related to the Belt and Road Initiative, and other emerging and developed markets. The Journal encourages the applications of economic and sociological theories to analyze and explain accounting issues within the legal and institutional framework, and to explore accounting issues under different capital markets accurately and succinctly. The published research articles of the Journal will enable scholars to extract relevant issues about accounting, corporate finance, auditing and corporate governance related to the capital markets and institutional environment.