The recent unprecedented wave of bond defaults in China has captured the attention of investors worldwide. We document a severe segmentation between the pricing of state-owned enterprise (SOE) and non-SOE bonds that arises sharply post 2018. Using our default measure, we find that this market segmentation is not driven by the fundamentals of the firms. We also show that this market segmentation has also caused...
We provide a rigorous examination of the causal impact of human mobility restrictions, particularly the lockdown of the city of Wuhan on January 23, 2020, on the containment and delay of the spread of the Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in China. We employ various difference-in-differences strategies to disentangle the lockdown effect on human mobility reductions from other confounding effects, including a panic effect, a virus deterrence effect, and a Spring Festival effect...
This article discusses that the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) implemented in China from 2003 to 2008 significantly reduced mortality rates among rural residents and greatly enhanced national health outcomes, serving as a model for developing countries in achieving universal health coverage.
In our recent paper (Tang and Zhang 2021), we investigate the global diffusion of culture through multinationals. We study specifically how foreign affiliates serve as a vehicle to diffuse gender norms from their countries of origin to China. Based on Chinese manufacturing firm-level data, we find that foreign affiliates in China tend to employ proportionally more female workers than local Chinese firms within the same industry...
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.