A Bridge on Economic Issues between China and the World
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Relocating or Redefined: A New Perspective on Urbanization in China
Li Gan, Qing He, Ruichao Si, Daichun Yi, Mar 18, 2020We 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.
Market Expanding or Market Stealing? Competition with Network Effects in Bike-Sharing
Guangyu Cao, Ginger Zhe Jin, Xi Weng, Li-An Zhou, Jan 16, 2019Positive network effects may lead to winner-takes-all in some markets. The column analyses dockless bike-sharing in China to show instead how an incumbent can benefit from positive spillovers from a competitor’s entry. In the case of bike-sharing, consumers multi-home, the market exhibits positive network effects, and investment by two firms is more cost-efficient than investment by one.
Trends and Cycles in China’s Macroeconomy
Chun Chang, Kaiji Chen, Daniel F. Waggoner, Tao Zha, Jun 27, 2018China’s spectacular growth over the 2000s has slowed since 2013. The driving force behind the country’s growth was investment, so the key to understanding the slowdown lies in understanding what sustained investment in the past. This column shows how a preferential credit policy promoting heavy industrialisation explains the trends and cycles in China’s macroeconomy over the past two decades. This policy was not without negative consequences, particularly in terms of the distortions it introduced for business finance. Going forward, China needs to focus on creating the right incentives for banks to make loans to small productive businesses.
Leverage-Induced Fire Sales and Stock Market Crashes
Jiangze Bian, Zhiguo He, Kelly Shue, Hao Zhou, Dec 03, 2018The 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 Dynamic Effects of Computerized VAT Invoices on Chinese Manufacturing Firms
Haichao Fan, Yu Liu, Nancy Qian, Jaya Wen, Aug 08, 2018This investigation uses a balanced panel of large manufacturing firms to provide novel evidence on the dynamic effects of computerizing VAT invoices on tax revenues and firm behavior in China, 1998-2007. We find that computerization increases cumulative VAT revenues and increases the effective average tax rate. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that the effects of computerization change over time: tax revenue gains are likely to be smaller in the long run. Meanwhile, firms reduce output and input, and increase productivity monotonically over time.
