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Financing Micro-entrepreneurship in Online Crowdfunding Markets: Local Preference versus Information Frictions

Jian Ni, Yi Xin, Sep 30, 2020

Crowdfunding has become an important financing alternative for micro-entrepreneurship. We study to what extent bias toward local entrepreneurs is prevalent in crowdfunding markets, determine the main driving forces for such bias, and examine how crowdfunding platforms and policymakers can leverage these forces to stimulate micro-entrepreneurship. Even though online crowdfunding platforms are designed to overcome geographic barriers, we find evidence of strong local bias induced by both informational frictions and local preference, with the former being more important.

China’s New Goal for Income Distribution: What Does it Mean and are There Tradeoffs?

Martin Ravallion, Shaohua Chen, Mar 16, 2022

China’s political leadership recently committed to expanding the proportion of middle-income groups to create a less polarised, and more ‘olive-shaped’, distribution of wealth. This column considers the potential trade-offs between reducing income polarisation and other goals, including poverty reduction.

Discounting Chinese Industrial Policy

Andrew J.Sinclair, Chuyi Zhang, Jan 31, 2024

The Chinese government supports the development of dozens of industries today, but the long-run sustainability of this model depends crucially on policy efficiency.

Superstition Everywhere

Jinfan Zhang, Huancheng Du, Mar 09, 2022

In Chinese culture, digit 8 (4) is taken as lucky (unlucky). We find that the numerological superstition has a profound impact across China’s stock, bond and foreign exchange markets, affecting asset prices in both the primary and secondary markets. The superstition effect, i.e., the probability of asset price ending with a lucky (unlucky) digit far exceeds (falls short of) what would be expected by chance, is everywhere.

Local Government Financial Constraint and Spending Multiplier in China

Yang Su, Dec 28, 2022

Local fiscal policies have been very effective in China since 2000.