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.
Using the unique institutional feature of government regulations in China, we provide robust evidence that firms with a larger employment size have significantly better access to bond credit.
This article summarizes a study of the economic and public health effects of the Health Code app in China. By exploiting the staggered implementation of this technology across 322 Chinese cities, this study finds that the Health Code app significantly reduced virus transmission and facilitated economic recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic. A macroeconomic susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIR) model calibrated to the micro-level estimates shows...
Amid debates around state-led urbanization in developing countries, we analyze the causes and consequences of China’s skyscraper boom. We find that local governments often subsidize these projects through discounted land prices, motivated by political incentives. However, we find that such subsidies offer minimal long-term benefits, largely due to a mismatch with local conditions.
In latest study, Kaiji Chen and his colleagues at Emory University investigated the impact of COVID-19 on the Chinese economy. Through the construction of a GDP expenditure dataset and the application of SVAR modeling, they found that the constrained consumption shock during the pandemic significantly affected China's economy and may potentially alter its economic shock nature permanently.