China is aiming to become a technological innovation powerhouse by 2050, with Premier Li Keqiang recently announcing an increase in R&D investments by 7% for the next five years. But greater R&D investment is no guarantee of success. This column examines the effects of R&D investments by Chinese firms on aggregate productivity and growth.
We provide the first regional breakdown of GDP per head for China from the Song dynasty to the Qing, so that regions of similar size can be compared between Europe and Asia to establish the timing of the Great Divergence of living standards.
Capital controls are common in many developing countries. With capital controls, the standard financial market transactions needed for currency carry trade are hard to implement. Yet, as long as there is a big difference between domestic and foreign interest rates, the incentive to engage in currency carry trade is present.
We document gender differences in reactions to failure in the National College Entrance Exam, an important, high-stakes competition that solely determines college admission outcomes for almost all teenagers in China. Using unique administrative data in Ningxia Province and a regression-discontinuity design, we find that students who score just below the tier-2 university cutoff have an eight-percentage-point higher probability of retaking...
The children of cadres have a higher likelihood of owning business in China, and this relationship varies greatly with government intervention in the economy. Connections with government are likely to be the explanation behind this pattern.