Datasets Comparison

Our analysis draws upon data from A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges between 2016 and 2023—a period that coincides with China’s progressive data governance reforms, triggered by the enactment of the Cybersecurity Law in 2016. Firm-level data is obtained from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research (CSMAR) database. To ensure sample quality, financial sector entities are excluded due to their distinct regulatory environment, followed by the removal of firms with special treatment (ST) or particular transfer (PT) status, which signal abnormal financial conditions. Observations with incomplete variable coverage are also excluded. Continuous variables are winsorized at the 1st and 99th percentiles to mitigate the influence of outliers, yielding a final sample of 27,449 firm-year observations.

Finance

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Our analysis is based on A-share listed firms on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges over the period 2016-2023, which coincides with the gradual development of China’s data governance framework following the enactment of the Cybersecurity Law in 2016. Firm-level financial and market data are obtained from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research (CSMAR) database. To ensure sample comparability and data quality, we exclude financial firms because they operate under a distinct regulatory regime. We further remove firms with Special Treatment or Particular Transfer status, as these designations indicate abnormal financial conditions. Observations with missing values for the variables used in the analysis are also excluded. To mitigate the influence of outliers, all continuous variables are winsorized at the 1st and 99th percentiles. The final sample consists of 27,022 firm-year observations.

Finance

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International