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Judicial Independence, Local Protectionism, and Economic Integration in China

Ernest Liu, Yi Lu, Wenwei Peng, Shaoda Wang, Nov 23, 2022

Exploiting the staggered rollout, since 2014, of judicial independence reform that removed local governments’ control over local courts’ financial and personnel decisions in China, we show that judicial independence can reduce local protectionism and foster cross-regional economic integration.

China’s Producer Price Reflation in 2016–2017: Capacity Cuts or Recovering Aggregate Demand?

Linxi Chen, Ding Ding, Rui C. Mano, Nov 23, 2018

In late 2015, the Chinese government launched a multi-year plan to reduce capacity in the coal and steel industries. Around the same time, producer price inflation in China started to pick up strongly after being trapped in negative territory for 4½ years. What is behind this broad reflation—cuts in coal and steel capacity or a strengthening of aggregate demand...

Tournament-Style Political Competition and Local Protectionism: Theory and Evidence from China

Hanming Fang, Ming Li, Zenan Wu, Feb 22, 2023

Inter-jurisdictional competition in a regionally decentralized authoritarian regime distorts local politicians’ incentives in resource allocation among firms from their own city and a competing city.

The Data Privacy Paradox of Alipay Users

Long Chen, Yadong Huang, Shumiao Ouyang, Wei Xiong, Jul 07, 2021

We find that there is no relationship between the self-stated privacy concerns of a sample of Alipay users and their number of data-sharing authorizations with third-party mini-programs on Alipay. We explain this data privacy paradox by a curious finding that users with stronger privacy concerns tend to benefit more from using mini-programs, which further suggests that consumers may develop data privacy concerns as a by-product of the process of using digital applications, not because such concerns are innate.

China’s Growing Presence in Tax Havens: Implications for Policy and Research

Chris Clayton, Antonio Coppola, Amanda Dos Santos, Matteo Maggiori, Jesse Schreger, Jul 12, 2023

Chinese firms are increasingly utilizing tax havens like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and the British Virgin Islands to raise large sums of capital from foreign investors, accounting for over 60% of total offshore equities by 2020.