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China’s War on Pollution: A Review of Evidence from the First Five Years

Michael Greenstone, Guojun He, Shanjun Li, Eric Zou, Jun 30, 2021

The decade from 2010 to 2019 marked a significant turning point in China’s approach to environmental regulation and pollution. This review article examines recent trends in air and water quality, with a focus on the five years following the Chinese government’s announcement of its “war on pollution” in 2014. It also summarizes the emerging literature that has taken advantage of recent improvements in data availability and accuracy to understand the social, economic, and health impacts of environmental pollution in China.

BigTech Lending as a New Form of Financial Intermediation

Jon Frost, Leonardo Gambacorta, Yi Huang, Hyun Song Shin, Pablo Zbinden, Jun 19, 2019

BigTech firms, i.e. large technology firms whose primary business is digital services, are entering finance. Their entry into finance started with payments. Increasingly, they have expanded beyond payments into the provision of credit, insurance, and toward savings products, either directly or in partnership with incumbent financial institutions...

An Empirical Overview of Chinese Capital Market

Grace Xing Hu, Jun Pan, Jiang Wang, Jun 29, 2022

We provide an empirical review of the Chinese capital market, focusing on the basic return and risk characteristics of its major asset classes, as well as a comparison to the US market. All major asset classes in China have significant higher volatilities than their counterparts in the US market, but they do not always yield larger returns. Small-company stocks, short-, medium-, and long-term treasury bonds outperform their US counterparts, while large stocks underperform and long-term enterprise bonds yield similar returns.

Physician-Induced Demand: Evidence from China’s Drug Price Zero-Markup Policy

Hanming Fang, Xiaoyan Lei, Julie Shi, Xuejie Yi, Aug 11, 2021

We 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.

School Enrollment Restriction on Migrant Children and Human Capital Losses

Zibin Huang, Nov 24, 2021

In China, migrant children are at a disadvantaged and sometimes cannot enroll in public schools in migration destinations due to policy restrictions. Some migrant workers then have to leave their children behind in their hometowns, which causes the left-behind children problem. This study finds that if the enrollment restriction on migrant children is relaxed, migration of parents and children will increase, and the average human capital in the society will also increase. Low-skill families from small cities benefit most.