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Competition and Quality: Evidence from High-Speed Railways and Airlines
Hanming Fang, Long Wang, Yang Yang, Aug 05, 2020This paper investigates whether competition spurs quality improvement using the entry of Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail (HSR) as an exogenous increase in competition to affected flights to destination cities along the HSR line. We find that competition from the entry of HSR leads to significant reductions in the mean and variance of travel delays on the affected airline routes and that these improvements are mainly driven by reductions in departure delays and the duration of taxi-in time at the destination airport.
Do Richer Households Exit Agriculture? Positive Income Shocks in Rural China
Jessica Leight, Jul 18, 2018Rural households in China have experienced a steadily increasing rise in their real income over the last twenty years as economic reforms have revitalized this sector. Analyzing an unusual natural experiment generated by an increase in prices paid for mandatory grain procurement in China post-1993, I seek to provide evidence around how an increase in permanent income affects households’ production portfolio. Evidence suggests that households experiencing positive income shocks substitute away from agricultural production and are more likely to migrate and to invest in non-agricultural production. They also increase their observed levels of borrowing and non-staple consumption.
Special Deals from Special Investors: The Rise of State-Connected Private Owners in China
Chong-En Bai, Chang-Tai Hsieh, Michael Zheng Song, Xin Wang, Feb 10, 2021We document a hierarchy of private owners connected to the state through equity investment and a rapid expansion of this hierarchy over the past two decades. We build a model to show how the effects of a special deal from a state investor can be transmitted and amplified through the hierarchy. Our estimation suggests that the expansion in the span of state-connected private owners may have increased aggregate output of the private sector by 4.2% a year between 2000 and 2019.
What Happens to Rural Labor Supply Following the Birth of a Son or a Daughter?
Shing-Yi Wang, Nov 20, 2019Our research shows that rural Chinese women's labor supply falls for one year following the birth of a daughter before returning to pre-birth levels while the negative impact of a son on women's labor supply is larger and persists for four years. Furthermore, there is a decrease in household cigarette consumption, and an increase in the mother's probability of being in school, her leisure time, and her participation in...
Does External Monitoring from the Government Improve the Performance of State-Owned Enterprises?
Shengyu Li, Hongsong Zhang, Nov 03, 2021We investigate the impact of external monitoring from the government on state-owned enterprise performance, using the variation in monitoring strength arising from a nationwide policy change and firms’ geographic location in China. We utilize a structural approach to estimate input prices and productivity separately at the firm level using commonly available production data. We show that...
