Most Popular

Can Environmental Regulation Enhance Productivity? Evidence from China’s Industrial Sector

Yangsiyu Lu, Jacquelyn Pless, Feb 19, 2025

Our study also contributes to the broader discourse on industrial policy (see Juhász, Lane, and Rodrik 2023 for a recent review of related academic literature). As debates about green industrial policy gains traction in the U.S., Europe, and beyond, there is revived interest in developing a better understanding of how it might impact economic activity. Although economic growth and environmental regulation are often pitted against each other, our findings suggest that this need not be the case.

Foreign-Invested Enterprises and the Transmission of Global Financial Uncertainty: Evidence from China

Shujie Wu, Haichun Ye, Jul 21, 2021

How are global financial uncertainty shocks transmitted across borders? What is the role of nonfinancial multinational companies in the cross-border shock transmission? Using Chinese firm-level data, we find that rising global financial uncertainty has a significantly larger contractionary effect on real investment for foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) than their local counterparts. The differential responses to global financial uncertainty are more pronounced for firms...

Labor Market Discrimination against Family Responsibilities: A Correspondence Study with Policy Change in China

Haoran He, Sherry Xin Li, Yuling Han, Jan 24, 2024

China shifted its controversial one-child policy (1979–2015) to a two-child policy in 2016. We take advantage of the unexpected timing of this policy change and the heterogeneities in the pre-change environment to investigate labor market discrimination against expected family responsibilities.

Foreign Business Exposure, Policy Uncertainty, and Capital Flight from Home: Evidence from China

Dongxu Li, Xiaoxue Hu, Sep 22, 2021

Using subsidiary-level data of 3,863 Chinese nonfinancial firms from 2000 to 2019, we show that the multinationals have 5.3% higher capital expenditures than the domestic firms relative to the average. The multinational firms’ offshore investment increases with policy uncertainty about the domestic markets. Our analysis suggests that in the face of domestic uncertainty, multinational firms switch to...

Sex and the City: Demographics, Spatial Sorting, and the Marriage Market

Min Fang, Zibin Huang, Yushi Wang, Yu Alan Yang, Apr 28, 2026

China's falling marriage rate reflects a fundamental spatial mismatch: as highly educated women sort into big cities with larger service sectors and less educated men concentrate in poorer regions, persistent hypergamous norms leave both groups without suitable local partners.