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Roughly a decade ago, the Chinese government implemented a green credit policy aimed at lowering emissions from highly polluting corporations through improving information disclosure quality during the loan process. According to policy guidelines, banks may provide financial support only for new projects that passed an environmental assessment or were explicitly designed to decrease pollution. This paper used panel data from 320 companies in heavy polluting industries listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange from 2008 to 2016 and adopted a fixed effects regression model to examine whether collusion between local governments and Chinese listed companies has prevented the green credit policy from achieving its target. The results show that there is no significant positive correlation between CEID and corporate green financing, which means that the environmental information disclosure system does not send valuable signals to the market and has failed to become a decision-making tool for bank-risk management.

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Conversational analysis of language used (and recorded) during 64 different news conferences reveals patterns that editors use in arguing over what stories should appear on the front page. Editors' routinely signal front page newsworthiness by elaborating/defending their choices and work hard to defend the newsworthiness of their choices. Traditional news values are part of the strategy that editors use, but editors also find ways to obscure the role their own ideology may play in their own news selections. One strong trend is that stories are more likely to be chosen for the front page — with little argument — if they are part of a recent ongoing story. News themes, in other words, like individuals, have history.

The building and expansion of large-scale swine facilities has created considerable controversy in many neighboring communities, but to date, no systematic analysis has been done of the types of claims made during these conflicts. This study examined how local newspapers in one state covered the transition from the dominance of smaller, diversified swine operations to large, single-purpose pig production facilities. To look at publicly made statements concerning large-scale swine facilities (LSSF), the study collected all articles related to LSSF from 22 daily Illinois newspapers over a 3-yr period (a total of 1,737 articles). The most frequent sets of claims used by proponents of LSSF were that the environment was not harmed, that state regulations were sufficiently strict, and that the state economically needed this type of agriculture. The most frequent claims made by opponents were that LSSF harmed the environment and neighboring communities and that stricter regulations were needed. Proponents' claims were primarily defensive and, to some degree, underplayed the advantages of LSSF. Pro-and anti-LSSF groups were talking at cross-purposes, to some degree. Even across similar themes, those in favor of LSSF and those opposed were addressing different sets of concerns. The newspaper claims did not indicate any effective alliances forming between local anti-LSSF groups and national environmental or animal rights groups.

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