Latest
The Pre-Announcement Drift in China: Government Meetings and Macro Announcements Jun Pan, Qing Peng, Mar 20, 2024 Confirming Chinese equity market is policy-driven, this study reveals a significant pre-Govt return before top government meetings, akin to the US pre-FOMC drift. It highlights the market's anticipation of these events and their impact on asset pricing, underscoring the centralized financial system in China.
State Versus Market: China’s Infrastructure Investment Shuoge Qian, Hong Ru, Wei Xiong, Mar 13, 2024 In 2005, the Chinese government launched the landmark “36 Clauses” reform, marking a critical step toward forging a more favorable market environment.
Improving Regulation for Innovation: Evidence from China’s Pharmaceutical Industry Ruixue Jia, Xiao Ma, Jianan Yang, Yiran Zhang, Mar 06, 2024 In 2015, China revamped its pharmaceutical regulations, drawing inspiration from the US, to accelerate drug approvals. Using data at the drug and firm levels during 2011–2021, this study reveals three key outcomes.
Brain Drain to the State Sector: Job Preferences and Outcomes for China’s College Graduates Hongbin Li, Lingsheng Meng, Yanyan Xiong, Sinclair Cook, Feb 28, 2024 Despite private enterprises dominating China’s labor market, college-educated workers are still highly concentrated in the state sector. Using data from the Chinese College Student Survey, we find that 64% of students in the sample expressed a strong preference for state-sector employment.
Lucky Dragons Chih Ming Tan, Xiao Wang, Xiaobo Zhang, Feb 21, 2024 This article explores the intriguing connection between Chinese zodiac signs and parental investment in children’s development. Particularly, parents invest more in children born under the “lucky” sign of the dragon, potentially impacting their cognitive and noncognitive skills alike.
“To Go Electric or to Burn Coal? A Randomized Field Experiment of Informational Nudges” Hanming Fang, King King Li, Peiyao Shen, Feb 07, 2024 We conducted a randomized field experiment of informational nudges in northern China to investigate the potential obstacles that may hinder households from adopting cleaner heating, and evaluate the effectiveness of simple SMS nudges in encouraging the transition to electric heating.
Discounting Chinese Industrial Policy Andrew J.Sinclair, Chuyi Zhang, Jan 31, 2024 The Chinese government supports the development of dozens of industries today, but the long-run sustainability of this model depends crucially on policy efficiency.
Labor Market Discrimination against Family Responsibilities: A Correspondence Study with Policy Change in China Haoran He, Sherry Xin Li, Yuling Han, Jan 24, 2024 China shifted its controversial one-child policy (1979–2015) to a two-child policy in 2016. We take advantage of the unexpected timing of this policy change and the heterogeneities in the pre-change environment to investigate labor market discrimination against expected family responsibilities.
Cash in the Darkness Haohan Ren, Kemin Wang, Bohui Zhang, Fan Zhang, Jan 12, 2024 Relying on a large dataset on cash withdrawals of over 165 million bank cards from China, we find a higher ratio of cash withdrawals late at night is associated with criminal activity.
Returnees and Innovation: Evidence from Chinese Publicly Listed Firms Yibo Qiao, Andrea Ascani, Stefano Breschi, Andrea Morrison, Jan 05, 2024 We investigate the relationship between high-skill returnees and innovation of Chinese publicly listed firms.
Recent
How Liberalizing Trade with China Led to a Boom in International Students in the US Gaurav Khanna, Kevin Shih, Ariel Weinberger, Mingzhi Xu, Miaojie Yu, Aug 16, 2023 Focusing on China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, we show that Chinese cities with more exposure to trade liberalization sent more students to US universities.
Regional Variation of GDP per Head within China, 1080–1850: Implications for the Great Divergence Debate Stephen Broadberry, Hanhui Guan, Sep 28, 2022 We provide the first regional breakdown of GDP per head for China from the Song dynasty to the Qing, so that regions of similar size can be compared between Europe and Asia to establish the timing of the Great Divergence of living standards.
Combating Cross-Border Externalities Shiyi Chen, Joshua Graff-Zivin, Huanhuan Wang, Jiaxin Xiong, Sep 21, 2022 China implemented a pioneering policy in 2011, the Ecological Compensation Initiative (ECI), which establishes side payments between upstream and downstream provinces in the Xin’an River Basin.
Assessing and Addressing the Coronavirus-Induced Economic Crisis: Evidence from 1.5 Billion Sales Invoice Zhuo Chen, Pengfei Li, Li Liao, Zhengwei Wang, Aug 31, 2022 We probe the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent containment policies on business activities in China by exploiting big data on 1.5 billion sales invoices. The average drop in sales was between 23% and 35%, depending on firm size, for the 12-week period after the Wuhan lockdown.
Industrial Land Discount in China: A Public Finance Perspective Zhiguo He, Scott Nelson, Yang Su, Anthony Lee Zhang, Fudong Zhang, Jul 25, 2022 Local governments, which serve as monopolistic land sellers in China, face a trade-off when deciding to supply residential land versus industrial land. This trade-off is determined by the different time profiles of revenues from industrial and residential land sales, local governments’ financial constraints, and the extent of local governments’ tax revenue sharing with other levels of government.
Industry/Policy View Omnia Juncta in Uno: Foreign Powers and Trademark Protection in Shanghai’s Concession Era Laura Alfaro, Cathy Ge Bao, Maggie X. Chen, Junjie Hong, Claudia Steinwender, Jul 20, 2022 Trademarks, which identify the source of goods and services, account for the majority of intellectual property filings worldwide. We investigate how firms adapt to the introduction of trademark institutions by exploring a historical precedent: China’s trademark law of 1923, an unanticipated and disapproved response to end foreign privileges in China.
Dollar Funding Stresses in China Laura Kodres, Leslie Sheng Shen, Darrell Duffie, Jul 13, 2022 The need for US dollar funding during the financial stresses of March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic shocked markets, was evident in a number of countries (Avdjiev, Eren, and McGuire 2020; Bahaj and Reis 2020).
Serial Entrepreneurship in China Loren Brandt, Ruochen Dai, Gueorgui Kambourov, Kjetil Storesletten, Xiaobo Zhang, Jul 06, 2022 New firms have been an important engine of growth in the Chinese economy (Brandt, Van Biesebroeck, and Zhang 2012). Drawing on data on the universe of all firms in China, we study entrepreneurship and the creation of new firms in China through the lens of entrepreneurs who operate a series of firms over their lifetime, i.e., serial entrepreneurs (SE).
An Empirical Overview of Chinese Capital Market Grace Xing Hu, Jun Pan, Jiang Wang, Jun 29, 2022 We provide an empirical review of the Chinese capital market, focusing on the basic return and risk characteristics of its major asset classes, as well as a comparison to the US market. All major asset classes in China have significant higher volatilities than their counterparts in the US market, but they do not always yield larger returns. Small-company stocks, short-, medium-, and long-term treasury bonds outperform their US counterparts, while large stocks underperform and long-term enterprise bonds yield similar returns.
Share Pledging in China: Funding Listed Firms or Funding Entrepreneurship? Zhiguo He, Bibo Liu, Feifei Zhu, Jun 01, 2022 Our recent study analyzes the use of share pledging funds in the context of China. Survey evidence shows that a majority of the largest shareholders (67.3%) used pledging funds outside their listed firms, including financing their entrepreneurial activities.