A Bridge on Economic Issues between China and the World
Facebook 
Twitter 
Instagram
WeChat 
Email Most Popular
Accounting for Urban China’s Rising Income Inequality: The Roles of the Labor Market, Human Capital, and Marriage Market Factors
Shuaizhang Feng, Gaojie Tang, Mar 27, 2019China has witnessed persistent increases in economic inequality since the early 1990s when the urban labor market began its transformation — from centrally-controlled to market-driven. Using the Urban Household Survey data, this paper (Feng and Tang, 2018) documents the trends...
The Long-Run Trend of Residential Investment in China
Ding Ding, Weicheng Lian, Oct 09, 2019Residential investment has been a key growth engine for China in the last two decades. Total housing investment grew from about 4 percent of GDP in 1997 to a peak of 15 percent of GDP in 2014, with residential investment accounting for more than two-thirds of it. Our analysis indicates that structural changes in the Chinese economy that led to rebalancing toward consumption...
In Rural China, Gift-Giving Is an Increasingly Costly Competition
Erwin Bulte, Ruixin Wang, Xiaobo Zhang, May 01, 2019Gift expenditures grow swiftly in rural China and may adversely affect people's welfare. While gift-giving helps to maintain social status and connections, gift competition may create a predicament: people must spend more and more to "keep up with the Joneses." As a result, the escalating gift expenses crowd out spending on other important consumption and become increasingly burdensome to people in rural areas, particularly to the poor.
The Dynamic Effects of Computerized VAT Invoices on Chinese Manufacturing Firms
Haichao Fan, Yu Liu, Nancy Qian, Jaya Wen, Aug 08, 2018This investigation uses a balanced panel of large manufacturing firms to provide novel evidence on the dynamic effects of computerizing VAT invoices on tax revenues and firm behavior in China, 1998-2007. We find that computerization increases cumulative VAT revenues and increases the effective average tax rate. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that the effects of computerization change over time: tax revenue gains are likely to be smaller in the long run. Meanwhile, firms reduce output and input, and increase productivity monotonically over time.
Reluctant Entrepreneurs: Evidence from China’s SOE Reform
Hanming Fang, Ming Li, Zenan Wu, Yapei Zhang, Oct 09, 2023In this column, we examine how the presence of state-owned enterprises (SOE) affects the private sector by influencing the allocation of skills across SOEs, private sector waged employment and entrepreneurship.
