The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Consumer Behavior-Evidence From China's Stock Market.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically reshaped consumers' grocery shopping behavior. Meanwhile, change in consumer shopping behavior might further exert a considerable and far-reaching impact on the food retail industry. Although the existing literature provides investigation on the impact of the pandemic on the retail industry, very few studies discuss the impact of changes in consumer shopping behavior on the stock market performance of the retail industry. This paper investigates selected food retailers listed in China's stock market. To overcome the problems of the Chow test, the Quandt-Andrews test was used to identify the dates of breakpoints of structural change in the stock price performance of those selected companies. The results suggest that there has indeed been an industry-wide structural change in the stock market performance during the pandemic. The study found that the dates of breakpoints for the selected companies were concentrated in the first half of 2020, when China was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic the most. Our survey shows that under strict epidemic prevention and control measures, consumers have gradually adapted to the new normal of epidemic prevention to a certain extent, established safety awareness, and changed their consumption behavior. Our study on stock price data implies that Chinese consumers experienced a shift from physical store offline purchases to online purchasing model.

Venture Capital and Chinese Firms’ Technological Innovation Capability: Effective Evaluation and Mechanism Verification

Making the financial industry a solider mainstay of the real economy is of great concern for China in the midst of economic reform. For China, leveraging venture capital (VC) to enhance a firm’s technological innovation capability (TIC) is an important means of actualising its innovation and development strategy, as well as a must-do to realise sustainable development. In this study, firms that went public from 2010 to 2020 on the A-stock market were used as samples to study the effects of VC on TIC and the relevant mechanism based on the difference-in-differences (DID) method. As research findings show, VC can improve TIC through the medium of the internal incentive and external constraint easing effects. The contributory role of VC in TIC varies with firm size, ownership, and industry type. A range of robustness tests, including the PSM, variable substitution, and instrumental variable methods, further strengthened the reliability of the conclusions. This study can enlighten policymakers on how to implement comprehensive resource factor market reform to build a favourable innovation environment that materialises the role of marketisation.

What Determine the Corporate Tax Rates During the COVID-19? Evidence From 113 Countries.

Fiscal policy implications become an important tool to soften the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given this backdrop, this paper analyses the drivers of corporate tax rates during the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., in 2020 and 2021). The results from 113 advanced and developing economies show that a higher level of the COVID-19-related uncertainty is positively associated with the corporate tax rates. Similarly, the country size (measured by total population) increases the corporate tax rates. Per capita income is negatively related to the corporate tax rates, but this evidence is insufficient to consider different estimation techniques. The paper also discusses potential fiscal policy implications for the driving mechanism of corporate tax rates for the post-COVID-19 era.

The Effects of Passenger Risk Perception During the COVID-19 Pandemic on Airline Industry: Evidence From the United States Stock Market.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a dramatic reshaping of passenger risk perception for airline industry. The sharp increase in risk aversion by air passenger has caused a disastrous impact on the tourism service industry, particularly airline industry. Although the existing literature has provided a lot of studies on the impact of the pandemic on travel industry, there are very few studies discussing the impact of change in passenger risk perception on the stock market performance of airline industry. This study considers two types of airline companies, full-service and low-cost. In order to overcome the traditional problem of the Chow test, Quandt-Andrews test is used to identify structural change points during the pandemic in the stock prices of United States airline companies. The result shows that an industry-wide structural change in the stock market performance indeed is found to take place during the pandemic for United States airline companies. Meanwhile, no significant difference is found in the structural change date between the two types of airline companies. The selected airline companies are found to be clustered toward the end of 2020 (November and December) in their structural change dates. Although the strike of the COVID-19 pandemic on airline industry has proven to be widespread and profound, our investigation implies that air passengers have gradually adapted to the new normal of travel activities at some level and partly rebuild their sense of safety under the strict epidemic-control measures.

Spatial analysis of COVID-19 epidemic situation of Yunnan

Objective: To analyze the spatial distribution characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic of Yunnan province, and we provide targeted prevention and control advice.

Comparison of initial high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) features of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia and other viral pneumonias.

BACKGROUND: Multicenter retrospective comparison of the first high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) findings of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and other viral pneumonias. METHODS: We retrospectively collected clinical and imaging data from 262 cases of confirmed viral pneumonia in 20 hospitals in Yunnan Province, China, from March 1, 2015 to March 15, 2020. According to the virus responsible for the pneumonia, the pneumonias were divided into non-COVID-19 (141 cases) and COVID-19 (121 cases). The non-COVID-19 pneumonias comprised cytomegalovirus (CMV) (31 cases), influenza A virus (82 cases), and influenza B virus (20 cases). The differences in the basic clinical characteristics, lesion distribution, location and imaging signs among the four viral pneumonias were analyzed and compared. RESULTS: Fever and cough were the most common clinical symptoms of the four viral pneumonias. Compared with the COVID-19 patients, the non-COVID-19 patients had higher proportions of fatigue, sore throat, expectorant and chest tightness (all P<0.000). In addition, in the CMV pneumonia patients, the proportions of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and leukopenia were high (all PP<0.000). Comparison of the imaging findings of the four viral pneumonias showed that the pulmonary lesions of COVID-19 were more likely to occur in the peripheral and lower lobes of both lungs, whereas those of CMV pneumonia were diffusely distributed. Compared with the non-COVID-19 pneumonias, COVID-19 pneumonia was more likely to present as ground-glass opacity, intralobular interstitial thickening, vascular thickening and halo sign (all PP<0.05). In addition, in the early stage of COVID-19, extensive consolidation, fibrous stripes, subpleural lines, crazy-paving pattern, tree-in-bud, mediastinal lymphadenectasis, pleural thickening and pleural effusion were rare (all PP<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The HRCT findings of COVID-19 pneumonia and other viral pneumonias overlapped significantly, but many important differential imaging features could still be observed.