We examine the impact in Chinese capital markets of publishing information on corporate fraud in a corporate social responsibility (CSR) report. We develop and test two competing hypotheses of “risk reduction” and “window dressing”. Based on the listed company’s CSR report, we analyze the effect of CSR disclosure on the commission of corporate fraud, fraud detection and the severity of corporate fraud. The research results show that after controlling for the firms’ characteristics and corporate governance factors, the CSR report’s information disclosures have a significantly negative relation to corporate fraud. Specifically, the CSR report’s publication reduces the information asymmetry between the insiders and the stakeholders, thus decreasing the tendency to commit fraud. Our findings support the risk reduction hypothesis but not the window dressing hypothesis. Further research shows that firms with a good CSR disclosure practice have a lower probability of committing corporate fraud and have fewer types of fraud violations, thereby mitigating the severity of corporate fraud.

This paper provides a monitoring on the reduction of multidimensional poverty in rural China from 2010 to 2016. The results indicate that significant overall alleviation is observed in the rural China. After decomposing poverty reduction through Shapley method, dimensional and regional breakdown, this paper captures the factors contributing to the overall alleviation of multidimensional poverty in rural China: the decrease of poverty incidence, rather than the reduction of poverty intensity; the improvement in the dimensions of education and living standards; and the obvious alleviation of poverty in Western China.

This article studies the relationship between environmental governance, public health expenditure, and economic growth by introducing human health status into a three-period overlapping generation dynamic general equilibrium (OLG-DGE) model and conducting a policy simulation analysis in a Chinese scenario. The main findings are generalized as follows: (i) The increase in pollution emissions per unit of output will not only lead to the deterioration of public health but also hinder long-term economic growth, while the efficiency of pollution control will improve health and output per labor unit; (ii) Although levying environmental tax will improve health status and life expectancy, it has a non-linear impact on pollution emissions and output per labor unit, which means that there are trade-offs among environmental governance, public health improvement, and economic output; and (iii) Although the increase in the proportion of public health expenditure will improve health status, its impact on life expectancy and economic output is affected by the level of environmental tax. Only when the environmental tax rate is relatively low, will increasing the proportion of public health expenditure extend life expectancy and output per labor unit.

A macro policy environment affects managers’ decision-making behaviors. When there is greater uncertainty in economic policy, will they engage in extreme violations? This paper explores the economic consequences of policy uncertainty at the firm level from the perspective of corporate fraud. We focus on the fraudulent behaviors of listed companies in the Chinese capital market and conduct our empirical research through the multiple mediation model. The results show that economic policy uncertainty not only has a direct effect on corporate fraud but it also has a mediating effect that can be explained by four mediating variables. Increased economic policy uncertainty will increase the likelihood of company fraud, and this direct effect will vary due to corporate heterogeneity. Companies with a lower risk tolerance and productive capacity will be more affected and have more significant violation motives. From the results of the mediating effect test, we determine that increased economic policy uncertainty increases mergers and acquisitions, decreases cash holdings, increases stock price volatility, and decreases institutional investors’ shareholdings, which will increase the possibility of corporate fraud.