As China transitions from high-speed to high-quality economic development, the concept of sustainable development, particularly environmental, social, and governance (ESG), has emerged as a crucial consideration in corporate decision-making. This study examines the relationship between ESG performance and corporate resilience through the lens of capital allocation efficiency. Employing a fixed-effects model, heterogeneity analysis, and a mediation effect model, we analyzed 4436 A-share listed companies that were rated according to ESG standards by the China Securities Index (CSI) between 2011 and 2021. Our findings suggest that: (1) ESG performance positively impacts corporate resilience. (2) The magnitude of this effect varies based on the ownership structure and industry. Specifically, ESG performance has a more significant influence on non-state-owned companies and manufacturing companies. (3) Improving ESG performance can enhance corporate resilience through three mechanisms: reducing financing costs, improving investment efficiency, and improving operational efficiency.

The presence of a link between corporate environmental protection investment and firm value is essential for enterprises to have incentives to invest in environmental protection by themselves. How environmental information disclosure affects the relationship between environmental protection investment and firm value is also an issue worth exploring. This paper uses the regression model with the industry and time-fixed effects to examine the relationship between environmental protection investment and firm value of China’s A-share heavily and non-heavily polluting enterprises from 2010–2020, as well as the moderating role of environmental information disclosure. The empirical results show that (1) there is a significant U-shaped relationship between environmental protection investment and firm value, and (2) corporate environmental information disclosure has a moderating effect. Specifically, it has an “amplifying” effect on the relationship between environmental protection investment and firm value. If a company’s environmental protection investment is insufficient, overly transparent corporate environmental disclosure will exacerbate the decline in firm value. Once environmental protection investment is up to standard, adequate disclosure can contribute to an increase in firm value.

Could the corporate carbon information disclosure strategy influence a firm’s brand value, and how does corporate carbon information affect it? Previous research mainly examines the impact of ESG information disclosure on firm value and other financial indicators, but little research has focused on the effect of carbon information on brand value. This paper focuses on the influence of corporate carbon information disclosure on brand value, and we find that it positively impacts corporate brand value. In addition, when a company chooses to adopt a more quantitative and diverse carbon information strategy, it increases its brand value. We also examine the potential mechanisms involved in how corporate carbon information disclosure influences brand value. We focus on three types of factor: analyst rating, customer attitude, and corporate financial performance, and find that higher analyst forecasts and positive customer attitudes have a positive impact on the association between the carbon information strategy and corporate brand value. In contrast, corporate financial performance provides only weak evidence. These results are consistent with demands by users for more precise guidelines from regulators and standard-setters for measuring and disclosing carbon-related information.

This paper empirically investigates the heterogeneous impacts of the media sentiment about policies with different themes on the real estate market in China. Based on the policy texts collected from both official and unofficial sources, we construct sentiment indices to capture the sentiment about policies with different themes, including real estate policies, fiscal policies, monetary policies, land policies, healthcare policies, household registration policies, and education policies, using text mining methods. Mediation models and GARCH models are then established to examine the impact of these sentiment indices on the real estate market. The E-GARCH model is established to examine the asymmetric effect of positive and negative sentiment on real estate market. The results show the following: (1) The real estate market in China is more affected by the policy sentiment on official media compared with the unofficial ones. (2) Policy sentiment affects the real estate price through the mediating variables of interest rate, real estate construction area, and real estate sales. (3) The impacts of sentiment with different themes on the volatility of the real estate market are heterogeneous. (4) The impacts of policy sentiment on official media are more pronounced in a tight government-policy environment than those in a loose one. (5) The effect of negative unofficial media policies sentiment on real estate price is bigger than the positive unofficial media policies sentiment.

To address the fragmentation in the definition of Agent and the profound challenges concerning the nature of intelligence, consciousness, and the observer-based unification of physics, this paper establishes Generalized Agent Theory from first principles. The cornerstone of this theory is Standard Agent Model, which conceptualizes Agent as a system possessing five indispensable functional modules: information input, output, dynamic storage, creation, and control, corresponding to a five-dimensional capability vector space.Based on Standard Agent Model, we systematically classify Agent，including Absolute Zero Agent (Alpha Agent), Omniscient and Omnipotent Agent (Omega Agent), and Finite Agent。and further detail 243 subtypes, while also exploring multi-agent relationships from the dimensions of perception, communication, and interaction. Subsequently, we introduce the “Polar Intelligent Field Model,” characterized by an Alpha-decay field and an Omega-enhancement field, to describe its evolutionary dynamics within capability space. The framework also proposes "Wisdom" (A metric for an agent's aggregate intelligence ) as a key intrinsic property of Agent, central to its interaction with these fields.Generalized Agent Theory offers a new interpretation of intelligence and consciousness: intelligence is defined as the overall efficacy of Agent in achieving its evolutionary goals, while consciousness is identified as the control function and its operational process. This provides a principled criterion for assessing the state of consciousness in current artificial intelligence systems, such as large language models.Crucially, Generalized Agent Theory reconceptualizes the physical observer as a specialized form of Agent and posits that the Universe itself is a dynamically evolving Finite Agent. From this perspective, fundamental physical concepts such as subjectivity/objectivity, uncertainty, the nature of spacetime, and entropy are reinterpreted as relative categories contingent upon the capabilities of the observer-agent. The theory further posits that the differences among classical mechanics, relativity, and quantum mechanics stem from the disparate capability configurations of their respective implicit observers, thereby offering a novel path toward their unification. This research aims to provide a unified foundational framework to advance research in artificial intelligence, physics, and related disciplines.