A key foundation of Chinese-style institutions is that different levels of government control resources and utilize their power to support businesses connected to them. Professors Haoyuan Ding of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Haichao Fan of Fudan University, and Shu Lin of the Chinese University of Hong Kong develop a theoretical model and present supporting empirical evidence to show how this institutional feature affects firm exports in China. In particular, they find that political connection has a positive effect on export in industries that heavily rely on external finance and contracting environment, but a negative effect on export in other industries.
This study investigates the factors contributing to building damage during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
Can intermediate input trade liberalization affect worker health in a developing country like China, and if so, how? Do the impacts differ between skilled and unskilled workers? What are the welfare implications of input tariff reductions once health factors are considered? Professors Haichao Fan of Fudan University, Faqin Lin of China Agricultural University, and Shu Lin of the Chinese University of Hong Kong develop...
Using a unique Chinese data set capturing the trading behavior of particularly aggressive investors, we provide new evidence that is consistent with the presence of informational advantages. Critically, an advantage of our data is that we can also directly identify several plausible channels through which such an informational advantage could arise. Specifically, return predictability around key value-relevant events is most pronounced in the presence of aggressive traders who share the same geographic location as the firms in which they trade.
China’s unprecedented and unexpected loosening of loan-to-value ratio (LTV) policy during 2014Q4–2016Q3 provides an ideal case to study the role of housing policy in housing booms and busts and its impacts on consumption and debt burdens among households. Evidence from three unique micro datasets shows that such a policy change disproportionately increased the share of mortgages to middle-aged and high-income homeowners in the total amount of newly issued mortgages and at the same time reduced their consumption growth...