A Bridge on Economic Issues between China and the World
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Employment Protection and Corporate Cash Holdings: Evidence from China’s Labor Contract Law
Chenyu Cui, Kose John, Jiaren Pang, Haibin Wu, Oct 13, 2021We examine whether and how employment protection influences corporate cash holdings using Chinese firm-level data. Our empirical results show that labor-intensive firms in China significantly increased their cash holdings following the enactment of China’s Labor Contract Law. Further analyses suggest that the results are generally consistent with a “labor adjustment costs” channel: employment protection...
Overpricing in Municipal Bond Markets and the Unintended Consequences of Regulatory Measures: Evidence from China
Laura Xiaolei Liu, Qiao Liu, Xiaoyu Liu, Ni Zhu, Dec 03, 2024Chinese municipal bonds are considerably overpriced in the primary market, leading regulators to set a lower bound on the issuance yield spread. This paper investigates the underlying reasons for this overpricing and evaluates the effects of implementing restrictions on yield spreads. Our findings indicate that underwriters may inflate prices to receive undisclosed benefits from local governments, such as local treasury cash deposits. We further show that the lower bounds severely impede price discovery in the primary municipal bond market. Even bonds not restricted by the lower limit are priced at the reference spread, exacerbating overpricing of riskier bonds. Local governments exploit these fixed prices by increasing the bond issuance amount and extending bond maturity. Our findings suggest that regulatory interference in pricing can have unintended consequences for pricing efficiency and that attempts to rectify mispricing may result in even more severe mispricing.
The Economic Impact of Distributing Financial Products on Third-Party Online Platforms
Claire Yurong Hong, Xiaomeng Lu, Jun Pan, Feb 26, 2020The emergence of third-party online platforms in intermediating financial products has been a new and exciting development in FinTech. We find that, in China post-platform, fund flows become markedly more sensitive to fund performance, and the net flow to the top 10 percent–performing funds more than triples their pre-platform level. In response, fund managers increase their risk taking to enhance...
Good Finance, Bad Finance, and Resource Misallocation: Evidence from China
Jiapin Deng, Qiao Liu, Apr 03, 2024The development of finance driven by Chinese local governments exacerbates the problem of resource misallocation, whereas market-driven finance significantly improves allocative efficiency. This highlights the policy implication that modern finance in China should prioritize the efficient utilization of resources rather than mere expansion in scale.
Industrial Policy: Lessons from Shipbuilding
Panle Jia Barwick, Myrto Kalouptsidi, Nahim Bin Zahur, Dec 18, 2024The article discusses that although China's industrial policy (IP) in the shipbuilding industry significantly increased domestic shipbuilding production and global market share, it had limited effects on improving domestic welfare and led to inefficient allocation of resources.
