A Bridge on Economic Issues between China and the World
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Picking Winners? Government Subsidies and Firm Productivity in China
Lee G. Branstetter, Guangwei Li, Mengjia Ren, Jun 21, 2023We investigate the relationship between the allocation of government subsidies and total factor productivity for Chinese listed firms.
The Fertility Consequences of Air Pollution in China
Xuwen Gao, Ran Song, Christopher Timmins, Sep 07, 2022We incorporate pollution exposure into Becker’s Quantity-Quality (Q-Q) model of fertility and evaluate how air pollution distorts individuals’ fertility behaviors in China. We find that increased pollution over time negatively affects the fertility of ethnic Han people, but does not affect the fertility of ethnic minorities. China’s One-Child Policy increased Han people’s demand for child quality (e.g., health status and education achievement), which can explain the negative association between pollution and fertility for Han people.
Do Multinationals Transfer Culture? Evidence on Female Employment in China
Heiwai Tang, Yifan Zhang, Nov 10, 2021In 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...
Magnification of the “China Shock” Through the U.S. Housing Market
Yuan Xu, Hong Ma, Robert Feenstra, Jan 22, 2020The “China shock” operated in part through the U.S. housing market, which is one important reason the China shock was as big as it was. If housing prices had not responded at all to the China shock, then the total employment effect would have been reduced by more than one-half. Even when fully recognizing that housing prices responded to the China shock, the independent employment effect of the China shock is still reduced by around 30%.
Boosting Pension Enrollment and Household Consumption by Example: A field Experiment on Information Provision
Chong-En Bai, Wei Chi, Tracy Xiao Liu, Chao Tang, Jian Xu, Aug 18, 2021We conduct a large-scale field experiment in the Guangdong province of China to examine the effect of informing individuals about government pension programs on their pension enrollment decisions and household consumption. Our experimental findings show the effectiveness of combining concrete and personalized information in designing informational material as well as the importance of targeting the most responsive population during information delivery.
