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Do Richer Households Exit Agriculture? Positive Income Shocks in Rural China

Jessica Leight, Jul 18, 2018

Rural households in China have experienced a steadily increasing rise in their real income over the last twenty years as economic reforms have revitalized this sector. Analyzing an unusual natural experiment generated by an increase in prices paid for mandatory grain procurement in China post-1993, I seek to provide evidence around how an increase in permanent income affects households’ production portfolio. Evidence suggests that households experiencing positive income shocks substitute away from agricultural production and are more likely to migrate and to invest in non-agricultural production. They also increase their observed levels of borrowing and non-staple consumption.

Housing Wealth and Online Consumer Behavior: Evidence from the Xiong’an New Area in China

Hanming Fang, Long Wang, Yang Yang, Nov 16, 2022

We provide new evidence on the causal effects of housing wealth on consumer behavior.

Credit Constraints and Fraud Victimization: Evidence from a Representative Chinese Household Survey

Nan Gao, Yuanyuan Ma, Lixin Colin Xu, Jun 09, 2021

How and why do household credit constraints affect fraud victimization when households face fraud schemes? Using the urban sample of a novel nationally representative data set on fraud victimization and household finance, we find that households facing credit constraints are associated with a higher probability of becoming fraud victims and suffer from higher economic losses from frauds than households...

Competitive Effects of China’s Listing Suspensions

Frank Packer, Mark M. Spiegel, Oct 28, 2020

China’s suspensions of initial public offerings (IPOs) provide a unique opportunity to evaluate the competitive effects of IPO activity on listed firms, as existing studies are challenged by the influence of market conditions on IPO timing. We evaluate the stock returns of listed firms on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges over the three most recent suspensions. We confirm adverse effects on listed firms from IPOs, both from direct competition and from the creation of close asset substitutes. We also find that weaker firms are more exposed to the adverse effects of IPO listings.

Excessive Issuance of New Funds in China and Implications for Investor Protection

Shuai Ye, Jinfan Zhang, Kaixuan Zheng, Jun 25, 2025

The Chinese mutual fund industry is only one-tenth the size of its US counterpart, but the number of funds in China has surpassed that of the US. Our study shows that such a large number of funds is unhealthy: managers issue new funds repetitively with different custodian banks, resulting in the average manager overseeing 2.7 funds. Managers shift profits to new funds in order to attract more flows. Among funds under the same manager, new funds have higher returns than old funds, spurring concerns over investor protection.