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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.

Feedback Trading and the Chinese Put Warrants Bubble

Neil D. Pearson, Zhishu Yang, Qi Zhang, Jul 27, 2022

There was a bubble in the prices of put warrants traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges during the summer of 2007. We use investor trading records from a large securities firm to show that put warrant investors engaged in a particular form of feedback trading. This feedback trading exacerbated an initial run-up in put warrant prices caused by a change in the stock transaction tax, and created the bubble.

Tournament-Style Political Competition and Local Protectionism: Theory and Evidence from China

Hanming Fang, Ming Li, Zenan Wu, Feb 22, 2023

Inter-jurisdictional competition in a regionally decentralized authoritarian regime distorts local politicians’ incentives in resource allocation among firms from their own city and a competing city.

Brain Drain to the State Sector: Job Preferences and Outcomes for China’s College Graduates

Hongbin Li, Lingsheng Meng, Yanyan Xiong, Sinclair Cook, Feb 28, 2024

Despite private enterprises dominating China’s labor market, college-educated workers are still highly concentrated in the state sector. Using data from the Chinese College Student Survey, we find that 64% of students in the sample expressed a strong preference for state-sector employment.

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, 2020

Since 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.