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Book Synopsis Invisible China: Hundreds of Millions of Rural Underemployed May Slow China’s Growth

Scott Rozelle, Natalie Hell, Jun 02, 2021

No assessment of China's growth is complete without considering the implications of having hundreds of millions of underemployed people in China's economy for the foreseeable future. The bottom line is that China needs to build on its recent efforts to boost rural education, health and nutrition, and early childhood development, and do so at a pace and intensity that recognizes these are potentially among the biggest problems the nation faces.

The Financing of Local Government in China: Stimulus Loans Wane and Shadow Banking Waxes

Zhuo Chen, Zhiguo He, Chun Liu, Jinyu Liu, Jul 05, 2017

The shadow banking activities in China surged in 2012-2013. Prof. Zhuo Chen and Prof. Chun Liu from Tsinghua University, Prof. Zhiguo He from Chicago Booth and Prof. Jinyu Liu from the University of International Business and Economics provide empirical evidence showing that the “barbarian growth” of China’s shadow banking during this period constitute a “hangover effect” from the four trillion RMB stimulus package in 2009.

The Real Driver of China’s Growth: Internal Economic Reform

Trevor Tombe, Xiaodong Zhu, Apr 03, 2019

Many people have attributed China’ s growth since 2001 to its accession to WTO and the resulting rapid export expansion. We provide quantitative evidence showing that internal economic reform, not export expansion, was the real driver of China’ s growth in the period after 2001. We also show that there is still large potential growth from further internal reform in China.

E-Commerce Integration and Economic Development: Evidence from China

Victor Couture, Benjamin Faber, Yizhen Gu, Lizhi Liu, Apr 11, 2018

In our recent work (Couture et al., 2018), we combine an experiment that we implement across Chinese villages with a new collection of survey and administrative microdata to provide evidence on the potential of e-commerce integration to foster economic development in the countryside. We also explore the underlying channels and the distribution of the gains from e-commerce across households and villages.

Long-run Trends in China’s Urban Unemployment and Labor Force Participation

Shuaizhang Feng, Yingyao Hu, Robert Moffitt, Jul 19, 2017

Official unemployment rate in China is based on registered unemployment figures, but the official figures are likely underestimates of the true unemployment rates because many unemployed people are not qualified to register with government agencies and even those who are qualified may choose not to for various reasons. Shuaizhang Feng of Jinan University, and Yingyao Hu and Robert Moffitt, both of Johns Hopkins University, discuss their new effort to provide the first comprehensive picture of China’s labor market for the period 1988-2009 using Urban Household Survey (UHS) data administered by the National Bureau of Statistics of China.