A Bridge on Economic Issues between China and the World
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Does VAT Have Higher Tax Compliance Than a Turnover Tax? Evidence from China
Jianjun Li, Xuan Wang, Jan 15, 2020We study the effects of compliance with the value-added tax (VAT) by exploiting the reform that replaced business tax (BT) with VAT in China beginning in 2012. We find that replacing the BT with VAT significantly increases the reported sales and costs for treated firms, and the impact is much stronger for business-to-business (B2B) transactions than for business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions. Buyers in B2B transactions...
Impacts of Housing Policy: China’s Experiment
Kaiji Chen, Qing Wang, Tong Xu, Tao Zha, Jan 13, 2021China’s unprecedented and unexpected loosening of loan-to-value ratio (LTV) policy during 2014Q4–2016Q3 provides an ideal case to study the role of housing policy in housing booms and busts and its impacts on consumption and debt burdens among households. Evidence from three unique micro datasets shows that such a policy change disproportionately increased the share of mortgages to middle-aged and high-income homeowners in the total amount of newly issued mortgages and at the same time reduced their consumption growth...
Physician-Induced Demand: Evidence from China’s Drug Price Zero-Markup Policy
Hanming Fang, Xiaoyan Lei, Julie Shi, Xuejie Yi, Aug 11, 2021We exploit the staggered rollout of China’s drug price zero-markup policy (ZMP) to study physician-induced demand in healthcare. Our results show that the drug expenses in the treatment hospitals dropped by 63 log points (47 percent) compared with those of the control group; however, the expenses for non-drug services were 28 log points (32 percent) higher in the treatment group than in the control group. Our results provide robust evidence for physician-induced demand.
Going Green in China: Firms’ Responses to Stricter Environmental Regulations
Haichao Fan, Joshua Graff Zivin, Zonglai Kou, Xueyue Liu, Huanhuan Wang, Apr 29, 2020Evidence from China shows that firms respond to stricter enforcement of the emission reduction target by reducing their pollution. This effect is stronger for firms in industries with higher pollution intensity. Stricter environmental regulations also lead to sharp declines in firms’ profits, capital, and labor. A sequence of tests of the underlying mechanisms reveals...
The Unintended Consequences of Regulation: Evidence from China’s Interbank Market
Xian Gu, Lu Yun, Jun 12, 2019Financial regulation can have unanticipated consequences in the financial system. The evidence from China’s interbank market shows that banks tend to use newly introduced and lightly regulated financial instruments to get around regulation during their search for funds. Banks facing greater competition or higher liquidity shortages have more incentives to engage in such activities. Such interbank activities are closely associated with banks’ proprietary trading, suggesting the potential risk of financial contagion.
