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Destination-Specific Export Expansions and Their Impact on Education and Long-Term Outcomes in China

Junsen Zhang, Kang Zhou, Jul 17, 2024

This article discusses that export expansions to wealthy countries significantly increased high school enrollment rates in specific regions and among certain groups in China, but this impact did not translate into an increased prevalence of higher education. Instead, it had long-term effects on employment and fertility outcomes for the affected cohorts.

Integrating Jurisdictions, Dividing Workers: Consolidation, Labor Markets, and the Migrant-Local Wage Gap in China

Shiyu Bo, Yi Wang, Dec 24, 2025

We examine how China’s recent wave of city-county mergers reshaped local labor markets. Using individual-level data from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey and a staggered difference-in-differences approach, we find that the reform boosted wages by strengthening local economies and improving governance...

Laboratories of Autocracy: The Landscape of Central–Local Dynamics in China’s Policy Universe

Kaicheng Luo, Shaoda Wang, David Yang, Feb 25, 2026

This article shows how individual officials drive innovation, how competition shapes diffusion, and how a post-2013 turn toward central control has reduced local adaptation—often at a real economic cost.

Ray of Hope? The Rise of Solar Energy in China

Ignacio Banares-Sanchez, Robin Burgess, Dávid László, Pol Simpson, John Van Reenen, Yifan Wang, Mar 25, 2026

China’s solar subsidies triggered innovation and learning-by-doing that dramatically lowered global solar costs while generating domestic economic gains large enough to outweigh the subsidy costs, showing that green industrial policy can simultaneously boost growth and help fight climate change.