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The Impact of Corporate Taxes on Firm Innovation: Evidence from the Corporate Tax Collection Reform in China

Jing Cai, Yuyu Chen, Xuan Wang, Dec 19, 2018

We explore a tax reform on manufacturing firms in China in order to study the impact of taxes on firm innovation. The reform switched corporate income tax collection from a local to state tax bureau and reduced the effective tax rate by 10 percent. The reform only applied to firms established after January 2002, allowing us to use a regression...

Ownership and Productivity in Vertically Integrated Firms in China

Loren Brandt, Feitao Jiang, Yao Luo, Yingjun Su, May 27, 2020

This paper studies differences in the internal configuration and productivity in vertically integrated steel facilities in China using equipment-level information on inputs and output for each of the main stages in the value chain. At the facility level, we do not find statistically significant differences in productivity by ownership. This conceals important differences in the value chain: private firms outperform in pig iron...

The Effect of Pollution and Heat on the Productivity of High-Skill Public Sector Workers in China

Matthew E. Kahn, Pei Li, May 22, 2019

The quality of governance depends on public sector worker productivity. We use micro data from China to document that judges are less productive on polluted days. We find that public sector productivity elasticities are larger than the published estimates of private sector productivity elasticities with respect to pollution.

Data, Collateral, and Implications for the Credit Cycle

Leonardo Gambacorta, Yiping Huang, Zhenhua Li, Han Qiu, Dec 09, 2020

The use of massive amounts of data by large technology firms (big techs) to assess firms’ creditworthiness could reduce the need for collateral in credit markets. Using a unique dataset of more than 2 million Chinese firms that received credit from both an important big tech firm (Ant Group) and traditional commercial banks, we find that a greater use of big tech...

State Versus Market: China’s Infrastructure Investment

Shuoge Qian, Hong Ru, Wei Xiong, Mar 13, 2024

In 2005, the Chinese government launched the landmark “36 Clauses” reform, marking a critical step toward forging a more favorable market environment.