On June 27, 2024, Faculty of Finance at City University of Macau organized the twenty-second Finance Salon (2023-2024) at the Taipa campus. The salon was delivered by Associate Professor Ji (George) Wu from Massey University (Albany). His research paper titled "The Labour Market Friction Risk and the Cross-Section of Stock Return in China". This article examines the impact of provincial gambling culture on R&D spending by local firms. The study found that local gambling culture, measured by regional lottery sales revenue per capita, boosted R&D spending by local firms. This result is also robust to endogeneity tests using the 2SLS method after controlling for firm fixed effects and gambling culture in the neighborhood. Mechanism testing shows that provincial gambling culture affects corporate innovation by increasing the risk-taking attitude of local business managers. Furthermore, moderation tests show that local social credibility, local GDP growth, and economic policy uncertainty have a positive impact on the main findings of the article. The results are more pronounced for firms with high risk-taking behavior and non-state-owned firms. Finally, provincial gambling culture has lower innovation outcomes but higher innovation quality in the long run.
Associate Professor Ji (George) Wu is currently an Associate Professor of Finance at the School of Economics and Finance at Massey University. His research interests include China’s capital markets, asset pricing and corporate social responsibility. He has published papers in well-known academic journals such as "Journal of Banking and Finance", "Energy Economics", and "Journal of Business Ethics".
During this academic salon, Associate Professor Ji (George) Wu shared his latest research results with the Faculty of Finance, broadening the academic horizons of us. 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.