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Notching R&D Investment with Corporate Income Tax Cuts in China

Zhao Chen, Zhikuo Liu, Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato, Daniel Yi Xu, Aug 16, 2017

To encourage innovation, the Chinese government gave tax incentives to firms whose R&D intensity (as measured by the ratio of R&D expenditures over total sales) exceeds a threshold that varies by their total sales. Using a major corporate tax reform in 2008, Professor Daniel Yi Xu from Duke University and his coauthors provide empirical evidence for some "strategic" behavior — including some relabeling of administrative expenditures as R&D — by the firms to take advantage of the tax incentives.

Chinese Corporate Credit Ratings: Comparing Global and Domestic Agencies

Xianfeng Jiang, Frank Packer, Dec 06, 2017

When comparing the credit ratings of domestic and global agencies on Chinese corporations, because of the differences in ratings scales, it is best to focus on the domestic and global agency orderings of relative credit risk. Testing for differences in the determinants of ratings, we find that asset size is weighed more heavily as a positive factor by domestic agencies, while profitability and state-ownership are weighed more positively by global rating agencies, which also weigh leverage more heavily as a negative factor. In spite of these differences, both domestic and global ratings appear to be priced into the market values of rated bonds.

Exports in Disguise: Trade Rerouting during the US-China Trade War?

Ebehi Iyoha, Edmund Malesky, Jaya Wen, Sung-Ju Wu, Bo Feng, Jan 22, 2025

We found that the level of rerouting varied significantly depending on the granularity of the measure used: 16.5% of Vietnamese exports to the US were rerouted at the product level, compared to just 1.7% at the firm level. Trade war tariffs led to increases in rerouting, but estimates were again significantly smaller for more granular measures, underscoring the importance of detailed microdata in formulating trade policy and measuring compliance.

Understanding the Chinese Stock Market: Long-term Performance and Institutional Reforms

Franklin Allen, Jun Qian, Chenyu Shan, Lei Zhu, Jul 05, 2017

The Chinese economy had spectacular growth in the past three decades, however the Chinese stock market had the worst performance among the major stock markets. Professor Franklin Allen from Imperial College, Professor Jun Qian from Fanhai International School of Finance, Fudan University, and coauthors offer their explanation of this puzzling divergence.

How Do Family Planning Policies Reshape the Life of the Chinese Elderly?

Yi Chen, Hanming Fang, Sep 12, 2018

In our recent work (Chen and Fang, 2018), we evaluate the long-term consequences of China’s family planning policies on the quality of life of the Chinese elderly. We identify the causal impact by exploiting the provincial heterogeneity in implementing the “Later, Longer, Fewer” policies in the early 1970s. We estimate the causal effect on a set of outcomes, including support from children, consumption, and physical and mental health. We find that family planning has either no effect or a slightly positive effect on elderly parents’ physical health status; however, parents who are more exposed to family planning policies report significantly worse mental health.