Most Popular

The Impact of Intranational Trade Barriers on Exports: Evidence from a Nationwide VAT Rebate Reform in China

Jie Bai, Jiahua Liu, Feb 19, 2020

It is well known that various forms of non-tariff trade barriers exist within a country. Empirically, it is difficult to measure these barriers as they can take many forms. We take advantage of a nationwide VAT rebate policy reform in China as a natural experiment to identify the existence of these intranational barriers due to local protectionism and study the impact...

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.

The Value of Childhood Vaccination in China

Hamid Reza Oskorouchi, Alfonso Sousa-Poza, David Bloom, Sep 09, 2020

Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) we estimated the effect of childhood vaccination on later-life schooling and cognitive abilities of elderly Chinese. We found that being vaccinated in childhood increases schooling by one year and improves numeracy and episodic memory scores by 6 percent on average. These encouraging results confirm the powerful and long-lasting benefits of childhood vaccination.

Outward FDI and Domestic Input Distortions: Evidence from Chinese Firms

Cheng Chen, Wei Tian, Miaojie Yu, Sep 08, 2021

A recent study shows that domestic input distortions faced by private firms in China have generated extra incentives for those firms to invest and produce abroad. This finding helps explain an astonishing increase in China’s outward foreign direct investment (FDI) flows since the financial crisis.

English Language Requirements and Educational Inequality in China

Hongbin Li, Lingsheng Meng, Kai Mu, Shaoda Wang, May 29, 2024

The introduction of the English listening test in the NCEE has exacerbated educational inequality between urban and rural areas in China, thereby affecting the college admission prospects and future income of rural students.