A Bridge on Economic Issues between China and the World
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The Role of Punctuation in the P2P Lending Market
Xiao Chen, Bihong Huang, Dezhu Ye, Apr 04, 2018Using data from Renrendai, one of the largest P2P lending platforms in China, we investigate how the amount of punctuation used in loan descriptions influences the funding probability, borrowing rate, and default. The empirical evidence shows that the amount of punctuation is negatively associated with the funding probability and borrowing rate. We propose that the usage of punctuation affects the readability of a loan description and reflects borrowers’ self-control and cognitive ability.
English Language Requirements and Educational Inequality in China
Hongbin Li, Lingsheng Meng, Kai Mu, Shaoda Wang, May 29, 2024The introduction of the English listening test in the NCEE has exacerbated educational inequality between urban and rural areas in China, thereby affecting the college admission prospects and future income of rural students.
The COVID-19 Pandemic and Job Creation: The Role of Global Supply Chains
Hanming Fang, Chunmian Ge, Hanwei Huang, Hongbin Li, Dec 30, 2020Using big data of more than 100 million posted jobs from China, we estimate how the COVID-19 pandemic affected local labor demand in China via global supply chains. The data reveal that the number of newly posted jobs was about 31% lower in the first 14 weeks after the Wuhan lockdown than comparable periods in 2018 and 2019. We show that COVID-19 cases abroad and foreign governments’ pandemic-control policies reduced new job creation in China by 11.7%...
Hayek, Local Information, and the Decentralization of Chinese State-owned Enterprises
Lixin Colin Xu, May 23, 2018Hayek (1945) predicts that where local information is important, the organization of production should be decentralized. This prediction is tested and supported in the context of the decentralization of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs). SOEs are more likely to decentralize with increasing distance from the seat of the oversight government. This likelihood is especially strong when performance heterogeneity is greater and/or transportation costs are higher.
Housing Booms and Shirking
Quanlin Gu, Jia He, Wenlan Qian, Oct 03, 2018Our research studies the incentive costs of China’s housing booms . We use the type and actual time stamps of 9.3 million credit card transactions by over 200,000 cardholders to detect non-work-related behavior during work hours. Employees respond to positive house price shocks with an immediate and permanent increase in their propensity to use work hours to attend to personal needs. Our estimate implies an elasticity of shirking propensity with respect to house price of 1.6. The effect is driven by homeowners, especially among owners with higher housing wealth. Further analyses point to negative productivity implications of the increased shirking.
