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The Long-term Persistence of Informal Finance in China

Jinyan Hu, Chicheng Ma, Bo Zhang, Jan 24, 2018

By using data on 137 counties in north China, we find that the density of financial institutions (Qianzhuang and Diandang) in the late Qing period has a significant positive effect on the number and total assets of small loan companies, a dominant institution of informal finance today. The persistent effect of historical financial institutions can be explained by Confucian culture, which instills integrity, lineage solidarity and acquaintance networks.

Impacts of Housing Policy: China’s Experiment

Kaiji Chen, Qing Wang, Tong Xu, Tao Zha, Jan 13, 2021

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...

Combating Cross-Border Externalities

Shiyi Chen, Joshua Graff-Zivin, Huanhuan Wang, Jiaxin Xiong, Sep 21, 2022

China implemented a pioneering policy in 2011, the Ecological Compensation Initiative (ECI), which establishes side payments between upstream and downstream provinces in the Xin’an River Basin.

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.

Reluctant Entrepreneurs: Evidence from China’s SOE Reform

Hanming Fang, Ming Li, Zenan Wu, Yapei Zhang, Oct 09, 2023

In this column, we examine how the presence of state-owned enterprises (SOE) affects the private sector by influencing the allocation of skills across SOEs, private sector waged employment and entrepreneurship.