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Growing like China: Firm Performance and GVC Position

Davin Chor, Kalina Manova, Zhihong Yu, Apr 14, 2021

We use firm-level customs and manufacturing survey data, together with Input-Output tables for China, to examine how Chinese firms position themselves in global production lines. We document a sharp rise in the upstreamness of China’s imports, while the positioning of its exports has remained relatively stable, over the 1992-2014 period. Participation in global value chains thus appears to have facilitated an...

China Needs Tighter Macro-Prudential Regulations to Loosen Capital Controls

Ambrogio Cesa-Bianchi, Andrea Ferrero, Alessandro Rebucci, Nov 29, 2017

China is on a path to capital account liberalization. If the renminbi is to become an international reserve currency (e.g. Prasad, 2016), as it has started to and one day will be, China must have an open capital account. But once the capital account is open, the economy will be exposed to gyrations of the global financial cycle (Rey, 2014). This column argues that international credit supply shocks have powerful effects on real and financial variables of the receiving countries, but not all economies are affected similarly, and those that have lower loan-to-value ratios (LTVs) and limits on foreign currency borrowing (FXLs) are less vulnerable. As China lowers controls on capital flows (e.g., Benigno et al., 2016) it should consider tightening domestic macro-prudential policy regulations (e.g., Cesa-Bianchi and Rebucci (2017) to avoid excessive volatility.

Corporate Innovation and IPO Interventions

Lin William Cong, Sabrina T. Howell, May 20, 2020

The Chinese government has occasionally suspended IPOs, exogenously creating uncertainty about access to public markets for firms already approved to list. We show that suspension-induced delay reduces corporate innovation activity both during the delay and for years after listing.

The Data Privacy Paradox of Alipay Users

Long Chen, Yadong Huang, Shumiao Ouyang, Wei Xiong, Jul 07, 2021

We find that there is no relationship between the self-stated privacy concerns of a sample of Alipay users and their number of data-sharing authorizations with third-party mini-programs on Alipay. We explain this data privacy paradox by a curious finding that users with stronger privacy concerns tend to benefit more from using mini-programs, which further suggests that consumers may develop data privacy concerns as a by-product of the process of using digital applications, not because such concerns are innate.

How the Internet Changed Chinese Exports before Ali Baba Came

Ana M. Fernandes, Aaditya Mattoo, Huy Nguyen, Marc Schiffbauer, May 16, 2018

The roll-out of the internet in China boosted firms’ exports and overall performance even before the rise of broadband and major e-commerce platforms. This finding is relevant for the many developing countries trying to strike a balance between widening access to basic internet services and deepening it through the creation of broadband networks and connections to major e-commerce platforms.