On June 24, 2024, Faculty of Finance at City University of Macau organized the twentieth Finance Salon (2023-2024) at the Taipa campus. The salon was delivered by Dr. Quan Zhang from Wenzhou-Kean University. His research paper titled "Employment Protection and Municipal Finance". This study uses the adoption of U.S. state-level employment protection laws to examine whether employment protection affects municipal bond financing. It finds that employment protection raises the issuance yield of municipal bonds. The results are more evident when the state unemployment rate is high, when bonds are callable, and when bonds are issued in high tax privilege states. While the bond issuance cost increases, employment protection benefits the credit rating of municipalities. In state-level analysis, the research shows a marginal decrease in governments’ municipal bond issuance and significant increase in public safety expenditure with the adoption of employment protection laws, suggesting that state governments support incumbent employees with more spending and financing.

Dr. Zhang currently holds the position of Assistant Professor of Finance in College of Business & Public Management at Wenzhou-Kean University. His research interests include IPOs and SEOs, Syndicated Loans, Municipal Bonds, Labor Protection, Mutual Funds, Hedge Funds.

During this academic salon, Dr. Zhang shared his research results with Faculty of Finance and had friendly interactions with teachers and students. The Finance Salon organized by Faculty of Finance at City University of Macau serves as a platform for exchanging academic ideas and fostering academic awareness. With finance as the main focus, we invite senior scholars/experts from academia and the financial industry to engage in research discussions on cutting-edge topics and share industry development trends, aiming to provide a fresh academic experience and thinking model for CityU students and members of the faculty. Through activities like the Finance Salon, we hope to offer graduate students a better academic platform, encouraging further exploration and research on academic issues.