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How Did the US-China Trade War Affect American Communities?

Michael E. Waugh, Apr 22, 2020

The US-China trade war—the unprecedented tit-for-tat increase in tariffs by the US and China—provided a unique laboratory to study and understand how changes in trade policy can redistribute the gains from trade. I argue that the trade war induced concentrated losses in consumption and employment for American communities most exposed to Chinese retaliatory tariffs.

Can Information Influence the Social Insurance Participation of China’s Rural Migrants?

John Giles, Xin Meng, Sen Xue, Guochang Zhao, Apr 10, 2019

We use a randomized information intervention to shed light on whether poor understanding of social insurance—in terms of both the enrollment process and the associated costs and benefits—drives the relatively low rates of participation in urban health insurance and pension programs among China's rural-urban migrants. Among workers without a contract...

FinTech Adoption and Household Risk-Taking

Claire Yurong Hong, Xiaomeng Lu, Jun Pan, Dec 16, 2020

China has experienced a rapid increase in FinTech penetration in the form of offline digital payments over the past decade. Using unique account-level data on consumption, investments, and FinTech usage from the Ant Group, we find that FinTech can lower investment barriers and help households move toward optimal risk-taking. Inferring individuals’ risk tolerance from their consumption volatility, we find that individuals who are more risk tolerant benefit more from FinTech advancement. Examining the enhancement...

“Golden Ages”: A Tale of the Labor Markets in China and the United States

Hanming Fang, Xincheng Qiu, Dec 15, 2021

We examine the Chinese growth experience in the last three decades through the lens of the labor market, focusing on evolving cross-sectional earnings distributions. We contrast the Chinese labor market with that of the United States and provide an interesting tale of the two labor markets over the last 30 years.

A Tale of Tier 3 Cities

Kenneth Rogoff, Yuanchen Yang, Mar 29, 2023

This paper provides new estimates of the housing stock, construction rates, and price developments by city tier in China.