A Bridge on Economic Issues between China and the World
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Can a Housing Boom Lead to Rent Inflation?
Honglin Wang, Fan Yu, Yinggang Zhou, Aug 24, 2018The housing boom and bust cycle has called attention to the volatility of housing prices and its impact on other markets. We challenge the conventional wisdom that housing prices are the present value of future rents and show that housing price uncertainty can affect household property investments, which in turn affect rent. Using data from Hong Kong and mainland China, we find a significant effect of housing price on rent and draw important implications for monetary and macro-prudential policies.
Physician-Induced Demand: Evidence from China’s Drug Price Zero-Markup Policy
Hanming Fang, Xiaoyan Lei, Julie Shi, Xuejie Yi, Aug 11, 2021We exploit the staggered rollout of China’s drug price zero-markup policy (ZMP) to study physician-induced demand in healthcare. Our results show that the drug expenses in the treatment hospitals dropped by 63 log points (47 percent) compared with those of the control group; however, the expenses for non-drug services were 28 log points (32 percent) higher in the treatment group than in the control group. Our results provide robust evidence for physician-induced demand.
The Reference Effect of Government Bonds on Corporate Borrowing Costs
Mark J. Flannery, Claire Yurong Hong, Baolian Wang, May 29, 2019It has been widely argued that government bonds can be used as a reference point for pricing corporate bonds. This “reference” role can reduce the cost of corporate borrowing. The authors study this question by examining a unique experiment in China. China issued two sovereign bonds denominated in U.S. dollars (USD) in October 2017, the first...
Assessing and Addressing the Coronavirus-Induced Economic Crisis: Evidence from 1.5 Billion Sales Invoice
Zhuo Chen, Pengfei Li, Li Liao, Zhengwei Wang, Aug 31, 2022We probe the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent containment policies on business activities in China by exploiting big data on 1.5 billion sales invoices. The average drop in sales was between 23% and 35%, depending on firm size, for the 12-week period after the Wuhan lockdown.
Connect to Trade
Haoyuan Ding, Haichao Fan, Shu Lin, Feb 21, 2018A 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.
