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Using a hand‐collected data set of Chinese reverse mergers (RM) between 2006 and 2015, we find that financial constraints are more serious and investment thirst higher for RM companies as compared with initial public offering (IPO) companies. For state‐owned enterprises (SOEs), listing via a RM or an IPO does not impact the level of financial constraints post‐listing, while SOE RMs have higher investment thirst than SOE IPOs. By contrast, non‐SOE RMs are under more financial constraints and have higher investment thirst than non‐SOE IPOs. These differences are not presented during the 4 Trillion Yuan stimulus period between 2008 and 2010.

We investigate the relationship between the intensity of share pledging activities and the level of financial constraint in publicly listed firms in China. We show that the high financial constraint level may motivate insiders to use share pledging as an alternative funding source and an expropriation mechanism. Although overall share collateralisation can cause a subsequently more constrained financing condition, we find evidence that share pledging made by the controlling shareholder is likely to mitigate financial constraints in the following year. Our findings are robust to alternative measures and an instrumental variable for dealing with endogeneity problems.

We investigate the relationship between cross‐listings and dividend policy. We find that Chinese cross‐listed firms have lower and more stable dividends than their non‐cross‐listed peers, and that dividends become more stable the longer a company has been cross‐listed. We also find the strength of the cross‐listing/dividend policy relationship varies based on the market where the shares are cross‐listed. The strength of the relationship varies from B‐shares (least strong) to Hong Kong shares (stronger) to American Depository Receipts (strongest). Our results indicate cross‐listings may influence both dividend size and stability, and that this influence can vary by the type of cross‐listing.