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Does Import Competition Harm Innovation? Evidence from Firm-level Data in China

Qing Liu, Ruosi Lu, Yi Lu, Tuan Anh Luong, Oct 06, 2021

Twenty years ago, China’s entering the World Trade Organization (WTO) was a catalyst for its economic development and propelled China into becoming one of the most important economies in the world. But massive import tariff reductions allowed more import competition, which raised concerns that innovation would be curbed. Tuan Luong, from De Montfort University, and his co-authors, Qing Liu, Ruosi Lu, and Yi Lu, discuss the impacts of import competition on domestic innovation...

Lucky Dragons

Chih Ming Tan, Xiao Wang, Xiaobo Zhang, Feb 21, 2024

This article explores the intriguing connection between Chinese zodiac signs and parental investment in children’s development. Particularly, parents invest more in children born under the “lucky” sign of the dragon, potentially impacting their cognitive and noncognitive skills alike.

Implicit Guarantees and the Rise of Shadow Banking: the Case of Trust Products

Franklin Allen, Xian Gu, C. Wei Li, Jun Qian, Yiming Qian, Sep 06, 2023

The prevalent implicit guarantees provided by financial intermediaries have been a central feature of shadow banking products in China. Our theoretical investigation shows that providing implicit guarantees can be the second-best arrangement and mitigate capital misallocation.

Does External Monitoring from the Government Improve the Performance of State-Owned Enterprises?

Shengyu Li, Hongsong Zhang, Nov 03, 2021

We 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...

Trade Policy Uncertainty and Firm Innovation

Qing Liu, Hong Ma, May 12, 2021

This study proposes a novel channel through which trade liberalization may induce innovation through the reduction of trade policy uncertainties (TPU) in destination markets. To verify this link, we utilize the significant reduction of TPU engendered by China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 as a quasi-natural experiment. We find that reduction in TPU significantly encourages firms' patent applications and that firms' innovation responses to TPU reduction vary by productivity, ownership, exporting status, and the irreversibility of investment.