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Book Synopsis The Future of Cities: The Shanghai Model of Migrant Children’s Education

Yuanyuan Chen, Shuaizhang Feng, Nov 15, 2017

Using a longitudinal survey conducted by the authors in Shanghai since 2010, we empirically examine the differences between migrant schools and public schools. We find that migrant students in migrant schools performed substantially worse than their counterparts in public schools in 2010, but the difference decreased by half in 2012, thanks to financial subsidies to migrant schools. We also show that even fortunate migrant students who are able to enroll in public schools tend to go to poorer quality schools; however, there is no evidence on negative peer effects of migrant children in public schools.

Chinese Economic Growth Doesn’t Appear Overstated, but Its Heavy Reliance on Credit May Be a Cause for Concern

Hunter Clark, Jeff Dawson, Maxim Pinkovskiy, Xavier Sala-i-Martin, Jun 20, 2017

Are China's official GDP growth number exaggerated? Hunter Clark, Jeff Dawson and Maxim Pinkovskiy from the New York Fed and Xavier Sala-i-Martin from Columbia University use satellite measurements of the intensity of China’s nighttime light emissions to proxy for GDP growth. Their estimate of Chinese GDP growth, since 2012, was never appreciably lower, and was in many years higher, than the GDP growth rate reported in the official statistics.

Book Synopsis How Reform Worked in China: The Transition from Plan to Market

Yingyi Qian, May 02, 2018

The general lesson from this book is this: for a reform to be successful, it is important to use the universal principles, even if they are not enough by themselves, and it is equally important to find specific ways to implement the reform by fully incorporating the initial historical conditions as well as contemporary constraints. The perspective of reform provided by this book’s analysis on China can also be useful beyond China, precisely because it emphasizes that to make reform work, it is not enough to understand why reform works, but also how reform works.

Shadow Banking: China’s Dual-Track Interest Rate Liberalization

Hao Wang, Honglin Wang, Lisheng Wang, Hao Zhou, Jul 26, 2017

Professors Hao Wang and Hao Zhou, both of Tsinghua University, Honglin Wang formerly of Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research (HKIMR) and Lisheng Wang of Chinese University of Hong Kong, argue that the shadow banking explosion in China may constitute a dual-track reform mechanism to liberalize the country's rigid interest rate policy.

Gaokao, Ability, and Occupation Choice

Chong-En Bai, Ruixue Jia, Hongbin Li, Xin Wang, Jul 28, 2021

In China, the college entrance exam score is predictive for both firm success and wage-job success in the future, yet higher-score individuals are less likely to create firms.