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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.

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...

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.

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.

Interest rates and exchange rates when the money supply goes up

Saleem Bahaj, Ricardo Reis, May 21, 2025

The power of monetary policy to affect interest rates and exchange rates depends on the downward slope of the demand function. This column uses the Chinese experiment with parallel currencies to study the impact of sudden increases in money supply. The authors find causal evidence that increases in money supply lead to currency depreciations, and use this to quantify the interest elasticity of reserve demand. The results can be used to understand how the People’s Bank of China maintained the peg between the mainland and parallel currencies.