A Bridge on Economic Issues between China and the World
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Clean Air as an Experience Good in Urban China
Matthew E. Kahn, Weizeng Sun, Siqi Zheng, Oct 14, 2020If clean air is a valued experience good, then the short-term reduction in pollution in the spring of 2020 due to the COVID-19 shutdown could have persistent medium-term effects on reducing urban pollution levels as cities adopt new “blue sky” regulations to maintain recent pollution progress. Using data from 144 cities in China, we find that the largest experience good effect should take place for cities featuring a high pollution-sensitive population and where air quality has sharply improved during the pandemic. The residents...
The Quiet Revolution in Women’s Human Capital and the Gender Earnings Gap in the People’s Republic of China
Zhengyang Li, Guochang Zhao, Jul 08, 2020Since the 1980s, girls’ educational attaintment increased more quickly than boys’. As a result, the gender education gap decreased and even reversed in China. How does the gender earnings gap change in the face of increasing female human capital? What are the implications for the Chinese gender earnings gap in the future? This column will shed light on this interesting topic within and across cohorts.
Does ESG Travel around the World? Evidence from Multinational Firms in China
Dongxu Li, Xiaoxue Hu, Oct 20, 2021Using a sample of 3,770 Chinese listed firms during 2015–2020, we find that firms’ ESG ratings increase with foreign sales ratios. The higher-rated multinationals have more foreign subsidiaries located in countries with better ESG conditions, and their equity shares are held to a greater extent by institutional investors, especially by foreign institutions. The multinationals’ higher ESG ratings can be justified by...
A Biological Clock Explanation for the Gender Gap in Earnings: Import Competition Increases Female Fertility
Wolfgang Keller, Hâle Utar, Apr 15, 2020Rising import competition from emerging countries such as China, which are increasingly integrated in the global economy, have led to lower labor market opportunities in many high-income countries, especially for middle-class manufacturing workers (see Keller and Utar, 2019). This article shows that the implications of rising import competition go beyond the labor market and also affect family size and structure.
Structural Change and the Stability of Aggregate Employment in China
Wen Yao, Xiaodong Zhu, Oct 27, 2021In developed countries, aggregate employment has a strong positive correlation with aggregate output, and it is almost as volatile as output. In China, the correlation of aggregate employment and output is close to zero, and the volatility of aggregate employment is very low. We argue that the key to understanding the stability of aggregate employment in China is labor reallocation between the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, and that the declining relative demand...
