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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...

Pushing on a String: State-Owned Enterprises and Monetary Policy Transmission in China

Peter Tillmann, Hongyi Chen, Apr 18, 2018

In China, a large share of enterprises is state-owned and has preferential access to finances. This should affect the way the economy responds to changes in monetary policy. We find that a policy easing is more effective than a policy tightening – which is consistent with the PBC being able to “push on a string”.

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.

Market Expanding or Market Stealing? Competition with Network Effects in Bike-Sharing

Guangyu Cao, Ginger Zhe Jin, Xi Weng, Li-An Zhou, Jan 16, 2019

Positive network effects may lead to winner-takes-all in some markets. The column analyses dockless bike-sharing in China to show instead how an incumbent can benefit from positive spillovers from a competitor’s entry. In the case of bike-sharing, consumers multi-home, the market exhibits positive network effects, and investment by two firms is more cost-efficient than investment by one.

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.