A Bridge on Economic Issues between China and the World
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Learning by Investing: entrepreneurial spillovers from venture capital
Josh Lerner, Jinlin Li, Tong Liu, May 22, 2024The experience gained by individual investors from participating in venture capital funds significantly enhances their entrepreneurial capabilities in the high-tech sector.
Debt Management and Strategic Interactions in Top-down Bureaucracy: Evidence from China
Xi Qu, Zhiwei Xu, Jinxiang Yu, Apr 30, 2025The Chinese central government implemented a series of measures to establish a top-to-bottom debt ceiling management system starting in 2015. Under this regulatory framework, public debt issuance for a prefecture city is subject to a ceiling (quota) determined through a hierarchical procedure. Based on a comprehensive dataset, we investigate what factors determine the allocations of debt ceiling to prefectural cities in China after the debt management reform. We find that the distributional outcome of the debt ceilings relies on the bilateral interactions of local and their superior governments. We also estimate the effect of ceiling allocation on the real economy, as well as the potential risk associated with implicit debt accumulation.
Empowering through Courts: Judicial Centralization and Municipal Financing in China
Jiayin Hu, Wenwei Peng, Yang Su, Aug 28, 2024This article discusses that the judicial centralization reform gradually implemented in China since 2014 has enhanced the independence of the judicial system, limited the intervention of local governments, and reduced court biases in favor of local governments.
Consumer-Financed Fiscal Stimulus Evidence from Digital Coupons in China
Jing Ding, Lei Jiang, Lucy Msall, Matthew J. Notowidigdo, Feb 05, 2025In 2020, local governments in China began issuing digital coupons to stimulate spending in targeted categories such as restaurants and supermarkets. We find that the coupons caused large increases in spending of 3.1–3.3 yuan per yuan spent by the government. The large spending responses do not come from substitution away from non-targeted spending categories or from short-run intertemporal substitution. We conclude that digital coupons are a cost-effective way to provide targeted fiscal stimulus to specific sectors of the economy.
The Externalities of ESG Disclosure
Yi Jiang, Ya Kang, Hao Liang, Jul 24, 2024This article discusses that China's mandatory Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosure policies have led firms to increase their donations for poverty alleviation, yet paradoxically have also resulted in higher pollution levels, thereby highlighting the potential environmental negative externalities that can arise from the government's mild steering of corporate behavior through disclosure mandates.
