Purpose: Following the standard practice of using nutrition claims to denote food functionality, this study empirically explores Chinese consumers’ willingness-to-pay for functional processed meat products by using three nutrition claims (namely “increased calcium,” “containing omega-3”, and “reduced salt”) made on pork sausages. It also aims to outline the typical characteristics of Chinese consumer segments based on preferences.Design/methodology/approach: A choice-based choice experiment is utilized to investigate Chinese consumers’ valuation on attributes of interest regarding functional sausage products. First-hand data was collected in the two cities of Xi'an and Beijing.Findings: There are market potentials for domestic and/or imported functional processed meat products among Chinese consumers. Nutrition claims made on pork sausages are appealing to Chinese consumers, and therefore, monetarily rewarded by them. Being imported from a more developed country of origin could both positively and negatively impact consumers’ WTP for nutrition claims made on pork sausages. Furthermore, specific functional modification strategies should be taken into account when addressing different segments of the Chinese market. In addition, regional impacts between Xi'an and Beijing are implied in terms of consumers’ valuation for functional pork sausages.Research limitations/implications: Limitations in the current study are mainly two folds. First, the WTP estimation magnitudes are subject to a hypothetical bias by using a stated preference approach. Second, this study only focuses on pork sausages to explore consumers’ perceptions and selects three nutrition claims among many other relevant options.Practical implications: Implications are provided for meat marketers and for Chinese official food policymakers, such that promoting meat products with a nutrition claim is an attractive marketing strategy for foreign food manufacturers in China, and more reformulated meat products with better nutritional compositions should be allowed in the Chinese market.Originality/value: To the best of the author’s knowledge, this research is the first to fill in the literature blank on investigating the consumers’ valuation for functional meat in the emerging market of China. Because when taking Chinese consumers as a target market and evaluating their perceptions of food quality-related labeling and certifications, the existing literature is mainly limited to topics of product safety, organic/green products, and geographical origins. However, nutrition claims, as marketable credence attributes that associate closely to the main characteristics of the functional food products, have been explored to a much lesser extent among Chinese consumers.

As marketing tools, nutrition claims (NCs) and health claims (HCs) can be used to convey the nutritional properties and health benefits of food to consumers, but their respective effects on consumers’ perceptions of healthier meat products are inconsistent in the literature. Using a physical prototype of omega-3-enriched sausages as a research interest, this paper explores how HCs and NCs differently influence consumers’ sensory preferences and willingness to pay (WTP). Sensory tests were carried out among 330 participants, followed by a choice-based conjoint (CBC) experiment to measure consumers’ WTP. Results indicate that, in comparison with the uninformed condition, labeling an omega-3 nutrition claim increased consumers’ sensory liking for omega-3-enriched sausages in the attributes of appearance and texture. Moreover, consumers were willing to pay more for healthier sausages, but labeling HCs did not significantly improve participants’ WTP for omega-3-enriched sausages more than NCs. Hence, HCs did not significantly outperform NCs, when it comes to positively influencing consumers’ sensory liking and paying intentions for omega-3-enriched sausages. The findings of this study have implications for the meat industry in developing healthier sausage formulations with greater likelihood of success in the market.

Consumption trends demand healthier meat products and require research into reformulation strategies. Ambiguities in consumer preferences for two processed meat reformulation strategies (i.e., ingredient “reduction” and nutrient “addition”) were investigated. Using physical prototypes of omega-3-enriched pork sausages and sensory evaluation to reduce hypothetical bias, followed by a choice-based conjoint experiment, results suggested that consumers valued both “addition” and “reduction” reformulation strategies, and consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) premiums were the highest for omega-3 addition, followed by fat reduction, and were lowest for salt reduction. Moreover, WTP was influenced by sensory preferences and was positively correlated with sensory liking levels. Providing health-related information improved consumers’ sensory perceptions of omega-3-enriched sausages. Findings imply that reformulated healthier meat products are acceptable to consumers. Moreover, to enhance consumers’ valuation on new launches of healthier processed meat products, meat manufacturers should inform consumers of health-related reformulation information, provide consumers with opportunities to taste newly developed healthier processed meat products, and continuously optimize consumers’ sensory experience.

In order to verify effect of the industrial policies on solving the problem of market failure, we collect the data from China A-share listed companies among 2008-2019, and analyze the effect of government subsidies on the entity over-financialization. The results show that government subsidies significantly inhibit the entity over-financialization. Because the government subsidies could increase the performance of enterprise’s main business and level of the enterprise’s profitability. Subsequently, the enterprise’s arbitrage from cross-industries and the managers’ composition could be decreased. Consequently, government subsidies could reduce the entity over-financialization by the reduce of enterprise’s arbitrage from multi-industries and increase of the managers’ composition which is related to the enterprise’s performance. The results also indicate that the entity financialization is mainly motivated by enterprise arbitrage rather than ‘preventive reserve’ in China. Moreover, the inhibitory effect of government subsidies on the entity over-financialization is only significant in the enterprises with non-state-owned, high-tech, and higher level of demand of innovation. Thus, the government should accurately implement subsidy policies for the enterprises and increase the supports for enterprises with high-tech and higher level of demand of innovation, which could promote economy high-quality development.

In May 2020, China formulated the Internal Circulation Strategy (ICS) to address the risks of global economic downturns caused by deglobalization. This study is the first to empirically examine the impacts of China's ICS on its stock market performance, focusing on investor behavior. Using data from the Baidu search index and the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges for the period 27 July 2020 to 5 May 2023, the results reveal that stock returns are negatively associated with investor attention to China's ICS, while stock volatilities are positively associated. This suggests that the ongoing and profound shift in economic strategy has raised concerns among investors. Furthermore, our analysis of heterogeneity finds that the negative association with stock market returns is statistically significant only during times of high policy uncertainty or geopolitical risk. The positive association with stock market volatility is statistically significant only during times of high geopolitical risk. This indicates that the stability of the internal and external environment plays a crucial role in alleviating investor concerns. We also observe mixed impacts on different sectors of the stock markets, with some sectors unaffected while others primarily experiencing a decline in returns.