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Relocating or Redefined: A New Perspective on Urbanization in China

Li Gan, Qing He, Ruichao Si, Daichun Yi, Mar 18, 2020

We study the urbanization process in China during the past decade by deconstructing different sources of new urban residents. We find that around one-third of urban population growth in the past decade has consisted of redefined migrants from communities that have been reclassified from rural to urban, though they do not actually move. We further find evidence that failing to consider the number of redefined migrants and their housing behaviors leads to a high housing vacancy rate in China’s urban areas.

The Impact of Rural-Urban Migration on House Prices in China

Carlos Garriga, Aaron Hedlund, Yang Tang, Ping Wang, Jan 27, 2021

Rural-urban migration is an integral part of the dynamic process of structural transformation. The interplay between population inflows and house prices depends on various geographical differences in the economic and policy climate. In the case of China, we highlight particularly the roles played by location-specific hukou restrictions and local land supply.

Rise of Bank Competition: Evidence from Banking Deregulation in China

Haoyu Gao, Hong Ru, Robert Townsend, Xiaoguang Yang, Aug 17, 2019

This paper documents a novel trade-off of banking deregulation in the context of China by using loan-level big data. We find that following a deregulation in the form of geographically lowered bank entry barriers, the potential benefits such as the lower interest rates for borrowers were mitigated adversely by the worsening credit allocation. The soft budget constraint...

How Liberalizing Trade with China Led to a Boom in International Students in the US

Gaurav Khanna, Kevin Shih, Ariel Weinberger, Mingzhi Xu, Miaojie Yu, Aug 16, 2023

Focusing on China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, we show that Chinese cities with more exposure to trade liberalization sent more students to US universities.

Faking Trade for Capital Control Evasion: Evidence from Dual Exchange Rate Arbitrage in China

Renliang Liu, Liugang Sheng, Jian Wang, Nov 25, 2020

We examine whether firms over-report international trade to evade capital controls for foreign exchange arbitrage, by specifically testing whether the aggregate bilateral trade data gap between trading partners is positively (negatively) correlated with the exchange rate spread when the spread is positive (negative). At the disaggregated level, we also employ Benford’s law to detect trade data manipulations...