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FinTech Adoption and Household Risk-Taking

Claire Yurong Hong, Xiaomeng Lu, Jun Pan, Dec 16, 2020

China has experienced a rapid increase in FinTech penetration in the form of offline digital payments over the past decade. Using unique account-level data on consumption, investments, and FinTech usage from the Ant Group, we find that FinTech can lower investment barriers and help households move toward optimal risk-taking. Inferring individuals’ risk tolerance from their consumption volatility, we find that individuals who are more risk tolerant benefit more from FinTech advancement. Examining the enhancement...

How Did the US-China Trade War Affect American Communities?

Michael E. Waugh, Apr 22, 2020

The US-China trade war—the unprecedented tit-for-tat increase in tariffs by the US and China—provided a unique laboratory to study and understand how changes in trade policy can redistribute the gains from trade. I argue that the trade war induced concentrated losses in consumption and employment for American communities most exposed to Chinese retaliatory tariffs.

Bright Side of Government Credit: Evidence from a Superbank in China

Hong Ru, May 09, 2018

This study traces the heterogeneous effects of government credit across different levels of the supply chain. I find that China Development Bank's industrial loans to state-owned enterprises crowd out private firms in the same industry but crowd in private firms in downstream industries. Moreover, China Development Bank's infrastructure loans crowd in private firms. It is important for policy makers to disentangle these opposing effects of government credit.

Why Are So Many Young Women Moving to China’s Big Cities?

Yumi Koh, Jing Li, Yifan Wu, Junjian Yi, Hanzhe Zhang, Dec 03, 2025

It’s not just about jobs. It’s also about love, status, and the marriage market.

Does Spatial Misallocation in China’s Housing and Land Markets Drive Up Housing Prices?

Yongheng Deng, Yang Tang, Ping Wang, Jing Wu, Mar 23, 2022

We documented pervasive spatial misallocations in the housing and land markets in China. We find larger cities with more competitive land markets and strict land supply restrictions have fewer subsidies in housing sales, and consequently a higher housing price compared to its frictionless benchmark. Removing frictions brings welfare gain because more individuals live in larger cities.