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Structural Change and the Stability of Aggregate Employment in China

Wen Yao, Xiaodong Zhu, Oct 27, 2021

In developed countries, aggregate employment has a strong positive correlation with aggregate output, and it is almost as volatile as output. In China, the correlation of aggregate employment and output is close to zero, and the volatility of aggregate employment is very low. We argue that the key to understanding the stability of aggregate employment in China is labor reallocation between the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, and that the declining relative demand...

Returnees and Innovation: Evidence from Chinese Publicly Listed Firms

Yibo Qiao, Andrea Ascani, Stefano Breschi, Andrea Morrison, May 28, 2025

We investigate the relationship between high-skill returnees and innovation of Chinese publicly listed firms. To this aim, we construct a unique dataset of 2,499 firms over the period 2002–2016 by combining three different data sources (i.e. CNRDS, CSMAR, and LinkedIn). Our results show that different typologies of returnees (employees, technologists, and managers) with different experiences abroad (work versus study) may bring back different skills and impact differently on firm innovation.

Exporting out of Agriculture: The Effects of the China Shock in China

Jessica Leight, Jan 01, 2020

This paper analyzes the effect of China's 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization on structural transformation at the local level, exploiting cross-sectional variation in tariff uncertainty faced by county economies pre-2001. Using a new panel of 1,800 Chinese counties from 1996 to 2013, we find that counties more exposed to the reduction in tariff uncertainty post-accession are characterized by increasing exports...

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.

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.