Using data on monthly community-level confirmed COVID-19 cases and housing price in China, we investigate the impact of COVID-19 on housing price. With the difference-in-difference method, we find that the housing price of the communities with confirmed COVID-19 cases would reduce by 2.47%. The impact persists three months and the extent of the impact basically becomes greater as time goes on. The results are robust after the parallel pre-trend test and the placebo test. Moreover, the impact of COVID-19 on housing price only exists in regions with a higher infection level of COVID-19 or worse medical treatment conditions.

Manuscript Type: Empirical Research Question/Issue: This study tries to verify the impact of institutional environment, namely legal protection, law enforcement, trust and religion, on bank loans in the context of developing countries. In addition, we investigate the interactive effect of formal and informal institutions. Research Findings/Insights: Using survey data on enterprises from 25 developing countries, we find that institutional environment can significantly affect bank loans in developing countries. Compared with formal institutions, informal ones are relatively efficient at alleviating enterprises’ financial constraints, while law enforcement is more important than legal protection within the set of formal institutions. The split‐sample tests indicate that informal and formal institutions have substitutive effects on firms’ loan financing. Theoretical/Academic Implications: This study provides evidence of the impact of institutions on loan contracts in developing countries and sheds light on the importance of law enforcement and informal institutions. It suggests new avenues of research on the loan contract from a neo‐institutional perspective. Practitioner/Policy Implications: This study offers inspiration to the governments of developing countries interested in promoting enterprise development. In addition, it provides efficient methods that entrepreneurs can use to reduce the financing constraints on enterprises in the context of lower legal protection.

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Based on the turnover data of provincial party committee secretaries in China between 2000 and 2008, we find that the loan increment of local SOEs (state-owned enterprises) decreases by 18.9% in turnover years. We also document increased efficiency of long-term loans in turnover years. The effects of provincial leader turnover on bank loans only exist for local SOEs in eastern regions and more marketized provinces. Local officials have less of a political incentive to exert influence on bank credit allocation in turnover years, and therefore banks act as more effective intermediaries in optimizing credit allocation and improving the efficiency of loans.

The COVID-19 has been a worldwide pandemic and it needs for studies related to effect on people’s demand for insurance during the pandemic which is an important way to transfer risk. However, there is a lack of research linking COVID-19 and people’s demand for insurance. The objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on issuance demand, using data covering 241 cities on confirmed COVID-19 cases and insurance company revenue in China. The empirical results show that more confirmed COVID-19 cases are associated with greater per capita insurance revenue and the results are robust when considering endogeneity concern. Economically, the per capita insurance revenue increases by 0.896 Yuan for each more confirmed case. In terms of insurance type, the greatest increased insurance revenue is for life insurance, followed by health insurance. We further consider the heterogeneity of regions and find that the impact of COVID-19 on insurance revenue only exists in regions with worse medical treatment conditions or higher medical burden.