Reverse mortgages are financial products that allow older homeowners to live in their property and receive income for as long as they live; repayment is made from the proceeds of the property sales upon the homeowners’ death. A recent pilot program in China by Happy Life Insurance found almost no takeup of such products. We investigate whether, if reverse...
The authors find that margin investors heavily sell their holdings when their account-level leverage edges toward the maximum leverage limits. Stocks that are disproportionately held by accounts close to leverage limits experience high selling pressure and abnormal price declines that subsequently reverse over the next 40 trading days. Unregulated shadow-financed margin accounts contributed more to the market crash even though these shadow accounts had higher leverage limits and held a smaller fraction of market assets.
The article discusses how capital accumulation has driven China's transition towards capital-intensive industries, while labor-biased productivity growth has helped China maintain a competitive edge in labor-intensive sectors.
Convergence forces suggest that China’s per capita GDP growth rate will decline gradually from around 7% per year to the world’s historical average of 2%. In the past, this convergence tendency was more than offset by China’s opening to markets, improved legal institutions and business regulations, increased investment rates, higher life expectancy, and reduced fertility—but the convergence force will ultimately dominate.
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.