The increasingly serious destruction of the natural environment represents a great threat to the sustainable development of human beings and the earth. Under pressure from the government and public opinion, companies must assume environmental responsibility; however, there is no conclusion on whether corporate environmental responsibility is beneficial to companies. From the perspective of investment efficiency, this paper collects panel data from Chinese listed companies from 2011 to 2016 to discuss the impact of corporate environmental responsibility on investment efficiency and the moderating role of the institutional environment and consumer environmental awareness. The results show that corporate environmental responsibility can significantly positively affect investment efficiency, but this effect is not a short-term effect; it needs time to play a role. Second, in regions with a good institutional environment, corporate environmental responsibility has a more significant impact on improving investment efficiency. Finally, with the improvement of consumer environmental awareness, companies that assume environmental responsibility can address underinvestment. The research in this paper supports stakeholder theory, indicating that corporate environmental responsibility is not “selfless dedication”. In addition, the research results of this paper are robust and not subject to endogenous influences.

Currently, China’s aging population, high savings rate and high housing asset prices coexist, which has become a hot issue in academic research. First, considering the life-cycle hypothesis and overlapping generations model, asset prices are negatively correlated with the population dependency ratio and positively correlated with household savings. Second, based on census data from prefecture-level cities, a pooled regression model and two-stage least squares (2SLS) are used in this empirical research. The child dependency ratio was found to have a significant negative impact on housing prices, while the elderly dependency ratio had a positive impact on housing prices. The positive relationship between household savings and housing prices is highly significant. Finally, the interaction analysis shows that the impact of population aging on housing prices differs under different levels of household savings; thus, population aging affects housing prices through household savings, and the mediator dilutes and weakens this impact. The elderly generation’s release of savings could gradually inhibit housing prices. Population aging causes long-run downside risks but not a market meltdown.