Till now, comprehensive and quantitatively meaningful analyses of stock market participation outcomes of retail investors have been limited by data sources in developing countries. This article devised a special questionnaire related to stock investment to measure the financial literacy and stock investment return for the subjects with stockownership in China and to theoretically and empirically study the effects of objective FL, self-assessed FL, and their composite FL on SIR. The results of the comparative analysis showed that self-assessed FL has a (...) greater effect on SIR than objective FL, and the effect is mediated by risk preference. In addition, we found that competent and overconfident respondents have higher SIR, while under confident respondents cannot gain from the stock market. We also found that risk preference has a positive mediating effect in the relationship between competence and overconfidence and SIR, and a negative mediating effect in the relationship between under confidence and SIR. We thus concluded that confident investors can gain more stockholding returns via taking more risks regardless of the level of their actual financial knowledge. Our findings would be a meaningful complement to the studies of stock market participation. (shrink)

As one of the most eye-catching and intuitive evangelical tools, the Mappa Mundi was brought to China by the first group of Jesuit missionaries who entered this Asian country in the 16th century. Their purpose was to change the Chinese view of the universe and thus affect their traditional beliefs by introducing geography, astronomy, and cartography knowledge from the West. However, the indifference and resistance among Chinese scholars show that they perceived these missionaries’ scheme as an attempt to thoroughly shake (...) the national ideology and social structure based on Confucian philosophy. This paper aims to reveal the fundamental tension between Confucianism and Christianity through the Mappa Mundi in dynastic times. (shrink)