This paper studies the influence of institutional ownership on the Chinese A‐shares' ESG performance. Findings reveal the positive improvement from institutional investors, and this impact is stronger in firms with better‐expected ESG performance and low initial ESG performance. Besides, heterogeneous institutional investors have different influences, and only a pressure‐resistant institution plays the promotion role. Further studies based on the period following the financial crisis and when emphasising the environmental protection policy reveal that financial motivation and reputation motivation could be the reason for institutional holding. Our findings are robust after using the instrumental variable analysis, controlling for firm fixed effects, and replacing institutional holdings, and could be beneficial for the governance of firms in China.

This paper constructs an artificial stock market, especially the description of Chinese stocks to form a benchmark model of this paper. Then, we examine the relationships between price limit changes and market quality in the Chinese stock market. We set up five boards in the model and adopt the current price limits of the A-share market. In terms of experimental design, this paper adjusts the price limit to explore the path of the reform of the price limit. We also cancel the price limit to explore the necessity of price limits in China’s A-share market. After simulations, the experimental results of this paper show that relaxing the price limit will improve market quality. When we adjust the price limit from 10% to 20%, market volatility increases slightly, market liquidity increases and market pricing efficiency improves. When we cancel the price limit, market volatility increases significantly, market liquidity increases and market pricing efficiency decreases significantly. Our study shows that it is necessary to implement the price limit policy in the Chinese market, and a moderate relaxation of the price range will improve the quality of the market.