IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v76y2025ics1544612325002247.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The legal right protection of lenders and corporate employment: Evidence from specialized bankruptcy courts

Author

Listed:
  • Xiong, Jiacai
  • Peng, Chen
  • Yang, Zelin

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of enhanced creditor protection on corporate employment. We exploit the staggered establishment of specialized bankruptcy courts (SBCs) as an exogenous positive shock. Utilizing a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2011 to 2021, we find that the SBCs can significantly encourage corporate employment. The positive effect is more salient in firms with higher financial risk, and in regions with lower financial development and poorer legal environment. Additional analyses indicate that the increased trade credit availability, eased financial constraints and reduced zombie firms serve as mechanisms underlying the baseline relationship.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiong, Jiacai & Peng, Chen & Yang, Zelin, 2025. "The legal right protection of lenders and corporate employment: Evidence from specialized bankruptcy courts," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:76:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325002247
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.106960
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612325002247
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2025.106960?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhang, Huilin & Boubaker, Sabri & Ni, Xiaoran, 2023. "Creditor rights and real earnings management: Evidence from quasi-natural experiments," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    2. Wang, Shihao & Wang, Jiamin & Sahil Maqsood, Umer & Wang, Keyun & Li, Qian, 2023. "Creditor protection and trade credit financing: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    3. Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silane & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "Courts: the Lex Mundi Project," NBER Working Papers 8890, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Raymond Fisman & Inessa Love, 2003. "Trade Credit, Financial Intermediary Development, and Industry Growth," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(1), pages 353-374, February.
    5. Ding, Hui & Liu, Chenguang & Ni, Xiaoran, 2023. "Creditor protection and labor investment efficiency: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PD).
    6. Xiong, Jiacai & Ouyang, Caiyue & Tong, Jamie Yixing & Zhang, Feida Frank, 2021. "Fraud commitment in a smaller world: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    7. Doruk Cengiz & Arindrajit Dube & Attila Lindner & Ben Zipperer, 2019. "The Effect of Minimum Wages on Low-Wage Jobs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1405-1454.
    8. Sun, Liyang & Abraham, Sarah, 2021. "Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 175-199.
    9. Gao, Haoyu & Wang, Junbo & Wang, Yanchu & Wu, Chunchi & Dong, Xi, 2020. "Media Coverage and the Cost of Debt," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(2), pages 429-471, March.
    10. Baker, Andrew C. & Larcker, David F. & Wang, Charles C.Y., 2022. "How much should we trust staggered difference-in-differences estimates?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 370-395.
    11. Li, Pei & Lu, Yi & Wang, Jin, 2016. "Does flattening government improve economic performance? Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 18-37.
    12. Sreedhar T. Bharath & Tyler Shumway, 2008. "Forecasting Default with the Merton Distance to Default Model," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(3), pages 1339-1369, May.
    13. John Gardner, 2022. "Two-stage differences in differences," Papers 2207.05943, arXiv.org.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ouyang, Caiyue & Xiong, Jiacai & Liu, Li & Yao, Jun, 2024. "Geographic proximity and trade credit: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    2. Li, Tongxia & Lu, Chun & Xu, Lei, 2025. "Access to finance and cost stickiness: Evidence from anti-recharacterization laws," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    3. Liu, Chen & Yang, Wei, 2023. "Does social insurance stimulate business creation? Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    4. Lennon, Conor & Maclean, Johanna Catherine & Teltser, Keith, 2025. "Ridesharing and substance use disorder treatment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    5. Duan, Wenqi & Jiang, Mingming & Qi, Jianhong, 2024. "Poverty or pollution: The environmental cost of E-commerce for poverty reduction in China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    6. Zhang, Renjie & Zhu, Guiyi, 2024. "Green public procurement and firms' pollution emissions: Does demand-side environmental policy matter?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 1958-1978.
    7. Yadav, Anil & McHale, John & Harold, Jason & O'Neill, Stephen, 2024. "Estimating effects of staggered intervention with count and binary outcomes: a simulation study," Research Technical Papers 4/RT/24, Central Bank of Ireland.
    8. Xu, Yanhui & Deng, Fuhua & Feng, Qianbin, 2025. "The effect of tax enforcement digitalization on corporate digital transformation: Evidence from China's listed companies," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 1105-1134.
    9. Poignant, Adrian, 2023. "Small-scale mining and agriculture: Evidence from northwestern Tanzania," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    10. Li, Pei & Liu, Kaihao & Lu, Yi & Peng, Lu, 2025. "Organizing regulatory structure and local air quality: Evidence from the environmental vertical management reform in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 139-164.
    11. Davidson, Carl & Heyman, Fredrik & Matusz, Steven & Sjöholm, Fredrik & Chun Zhu, Susan, 2022. "How International Experience Helps Shape Labor Market Outcomes," Working Paper Series 1453, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 09 Jun 2024.
    12. Garman, Amy D. & Kubick, Thomas R., 2025. "Mitigating risk-shifting in corporate pension plans: Evidence from stakeholder constituency statutes," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1).
    13. Melnik, Walter & Smyth, Andrew, 2024. "R&D tax credits and innovation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 236(C).
    14. Balia, S.; & Brau, R.; & Pau, S.;, 2025. "One plus one makes less than two? Consolidation policies and mortality in the Italian NHS," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 25/02, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    15. Cui, Yi, 2024. "Place-based policies and capital misallocation: Evidence from Chinese cities," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 48(4).
    16. Gounopoulos, Dimitrios & Loukopoulos, Georgios & Loukopoulos, Panagiotis & Zhang, Yu, 2024. "Do CFO career concerns matter? Evidence from IPO financial reporting outcomes," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    17. Brick, Kerri & De Martino, Samantha & Visser, Martine, 2023. "Behavioural nudges for water conservation in unequal settings: Experimental evidence from Cape Town," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    18. Roth, Jonathan & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Bilinski, Alyssa & Poe, John, 2023. "What’s trending in difference-in-differences? A synthesis of the recent econometrics literature," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2218-2244.
    19. Hu, Xun & Xue, Cheng & Zhao, Xiangfang, 2025. "Corporate bond defaults and cross-regional investment: Evidence from China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 1514-1533.
    20. Caliendo, Marco & Olthaus, Rebecca & Pestel, Nico, 2025. "Long-term employment effects of the minimum wage in Germany: New data and estimators," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:76:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325002247. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.