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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.

Who Captures the Power of Pen?

Jiaxing You, Bohui Zhang, Le Zhang, Oct 17, 2018

We study how government control affects the roles of the media as an information intermediary and a corporate monitor. Comparing a large sample of news articles written by state-controlled and market-oriented Chinese media, we find that articles by the market-oriented media are more critical, more accurate, more comprehensive, and timelier than those by the state-controlled media. Moreover, only articles by the market-oriented media have a significant corporate governance impact. Subsample analyses, interviews with journalists, and a survey of university students suggest that the market-oriented media’s superior effects are explained by their operating efficiency and independence.

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, 2021

We 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.

The Fertility Consequences of Air Pollution in China

Xuwen Gao, Ran Song, Christopher Timmins, Sep 07, 2022

We 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.

Fiscal Stimulus, Deposit Competition, and the Rise of Shadow Banking: Evidence from China

Viral V. Acharya, Jun Qian, Yang Su, Zhishu Yang, Apr 24, 2024

The article reveals that the rise of shadow banking in China stems from the intensification of deposit competition after the global financial crisis, and analyzes the threat of small and medium-sized banks' disadvantage in this competition to the overall financial system.