A Bridge on Economic Issues between China and the World
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Data, Collateral, and Implications for the Credit Cycle
Leonardo Gambacorta, Yiping Huang, Zhenhua Li, Han Qiu, Dec 09, 2020The use of massive amounts of data by large technology firms (big techs) to assess firms’ creditworthiness could reduce the need for collateral in credit markets. Using a unique dataset of more than 2 million Chinese firms that received credit from both an important big tech firm (Ant Group) and traditional commercial banks, we find that a greater use of big tech...
Verifying China’s COVID-19 Recovery Using the FRBSF China CAT
Remy Beauregard, John G. Fernald, Mark M. Spiegel, Dec 23, 2020Using the FRBSF China Cyclical Activity Tracker, we confirm the robustness of China’s recovery from the COVID-19 downturn. The FRBSF “China CAT” estimates that first quarter 2020 China GDP plunged 6.4 standard deviations below its detrended level a year earlier, but by the end of the third quarter, China economic activity had recovered to only 0.1 standard deviations below trend. As such, the FRBSF China CAT index validates the accuracy...
Is the Wife A Risk Mitigator? Evidence from Family Firms in China
Yue Pan, Jinli Xiao, Vincent W. Yao, Jian Zhang, Jun 06, 2018Firm-level decisions are largely made by corporate executives whose preferences and attitudes can be shaped by historical traits and what is happening inside their households. We investigate how the involvement of a founder’s wife through marital ownership influences the family firm’s level of risk-taking and explore the underlying mechanisms.
Currency Carry Trade by Trucks: The Curious Case of China’s Massive Imports from Itself
Xuepeng Liu, Heiwai Tang, Zhi Wang, Shang-Jin Wei, Apr 13, 2022Capital controls are common in many developing countries. With capital controls, the standard financial market transactions needed for currency carry trade are hard to implement. Yet, as long as there is a big difference between domestic and foreign interest rates, the incentive to engage in currency carry trade is present.
Decoding China’s Industrial Policies
Hanming Fang, Ming Li, Guangli Lu, Jul 02, 2025Industrial policy is often discussed through high-level narratives and flagship initiatives, yet its implementation—particularly at the subnational level—remains opaque. We leverage large language models (LLMs) to systematically analyze over three million government documents from 2000 to 2022, extracting structured policy information to decode China’s industrial policy at various levels of government. Combining these newly constructed granular industrial policy data with micro-level firm data, we document four sets of facts on China’s industrial policies, including the economic and political rationality of the choice of the target sectors, the dynamics of the policy tools, the diffusion and similarity of policies, and the effects on firm entry and productivity.
