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How Does Salient Academic Rank Affect Student Performance? Insights from a Chinese Middle School Study

Rigissa Megalokomomou, Yi Zhang, Nov 20, 2024

This article reveals interesting insights into the effects and mechanisms of achievement rank when it becomes salient to students and their parents.

Hayek, Local Information, and the Decentralization of Chinese State-owned Enterprises

Lixin Colin Xu, May 23, 2018

Hayek (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.

Industrial Clusters, Networks, and Resilience of Firms to the Covid-19 Shock in China

Ruochen Dai, Dilip Mookherjee, Yingyue Quan, Xiaobo Zhang, Jan 06, 2021

Both entry of new firms and performance of incumbents were less adversely affected by the Covid-19 shock in Chinese counties with a greater presence of industrial clusters. To explain these results, we find evidence of the role of two specific attributes of clusters: reliance on informal hometown-based entrepreneur networks and spatial proximity to suppliers and customers.

Implicit Guarantees and the Rise of Shadow Banking: the Case of Trust Products

Franklin Allen, Xian Gu, C. Wei Li, Jun Qian, Yiming Qian, Sep 06, 2023

The prevalent implicit guarantees provided by financial intermediaries have been a central feature of shadow banking products in China. Our theoretical investigation shows that providing implicit guarantees can be the second-best arrangement and mitigate capital misallocation.

Monetary Policy in China: A Trade-Off Between Transmission and Stability?

Kaiji Chen, Yiqing Xiao, Tao Zha, Sep 24, 2025

We explore how China’s shift toward interest-rate-based monetary policy faces an inherent trade-off. When non-state banks turn to wholesale funding, monetary policy easing is transmitted more effectively to productive firms, but the banking system also becomes more fragile in economic downturns. Our findings suggest that China’s regulators must strike a careful balance between achieving policy effectiveness and safeguarding financial stability.