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Stabilizing China’s Housing Market

Richard Koss, Xinrui Shi, Jul 25, 2018

The sharp rise of house prices in China’s Tier-1 cities has fostered a great deal of commentary about the possibility of bubbles forming there. However, China’s unique housing market characteristics make it difficult to assess the macroeconomic severity of bursting bubbles, even if they exist. These characteristics include the setting of land supply and prices by the government, among many others. This paper looks at proposals to shore up the mortgage underwriting and legal infrastructure to help China withstand the impact of falling prices, should this occur.

The Impact of the China Tire Safeguard

Sunghoon Chung, Joonhyung Lee, Oct 23, 2019

This column evaluates the impact of the China tire safeguard on the US tire industry. Contrary to claims made by the US government, we find that total employment and average wages in the tire industry were unaffected by the safeguard. This result is not surprising as we find that Chinese tires have been completely diverted to other exporting countries due to the strong presence of multinational corporations in the world tire market. On the other hand, US domestic tire prices increased by up to 10% during the safeguard period...

Shadow Banking in a Crisis: Evidence from Fintech During COVID-19

Zhengyang Bao, Difang Huang, Jul 14, 2021

We evaluate the performance of Chinese fintech and bank credit providers during COVID-19. Comparing samples of fintech and bank loan records across the pandemic outbreak, we find that fintech companies are more likely to expand credit access to new and financially constrained borrowers after the start of the pandemic. However, the delinquency rate of fintech loans triples after the outbreak, but there is no significant...

Household Finance in China

Russell Cooper, Guozhong Zhu, Sep 20, 2017

We study household financial choices in China and compare them with those in the US. We estimate a structural model where the two countries differ in terms of preferences and institutional arrangements. In the structural estimation, we take into account the effects of important structural changes in the Chinese economy between 1990-2000.

The Great Chinese Inequality Turnaround

Ravi Kanbur, Yue Wang, Xiaobo Zhang, Jul 26, 2017

This paper argues that after a quarter century of sharp and sustained increase, Chinese inequality is now plateauing and even turning using various data sources and inequality perspectives. The evolution of inequality is further examined through decomposition by income sources and subgroups. Some preliminary explanations are provided for these trends in terms of shifts in policy and the structural transformation of the Chinese economy.