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High-Speed Rail and Local Agricultural Development
Xiaoguang Chen, Binlei Gong, Zhilong Qin, Xiaoli Wang, Jan 07, 2026We study China’s extensive high-speed rail (HSR) expansions to address a key policy concern that large-scale transport infrastructure may undermine agriculture and food security. We find that HSR expansion facilitates the outflow of labor and land from agriculture, yet does not reduce agricultural output because productivity rises.
Paying to Pollute: How Carbon Offsets Actually Raised Emissions in China
Qiaoyi Chen, Nicholas Ryan, Daniel Xu, Oct 29, 2025How do we cut carbon emissions without slowing economic growth? One way is through offset markets: markets to buy reductions in emissions from parties all over the world. Offsets are meant to incentivize projects that cut emissions. Instead of reducing emissions themselves, firms or countries can pay others to do so on their behalf. This trade in abatement can potentially lower the costs of bringing emissions down.
Government reform and innovation performance in China
Min Zhang, Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, Nov 26, 2025This column exploits the staggered implementation of government agency reforms in China to examine the impact of institutions on innovation. It finds that the regions which pioneered these reforms have reaped the rewards of reduced bureaucratic friction and enhanced regulatory efficiency, manifesting in marked gains in innovation performance. The dividends of institutional reform are most pronounced in city-regions already endowed with robust innovation infrastructure and intellectual capital.
From Rural Schools to City Factories: Assessing the Quality of Chinese Rural Schools
Eric A. Hanushek, Le Kang, Xueying Li, Lei Zhang, Jan 21, 2026Rural school quality is low and varies significantly across provinces. We estimate provincial variations in school quality from the labor market returns to years of schooling of interprovincial rural migrants educated in different home provinces but working in the same urban labor market. School quality is higher and provincial variation is lower for younger cohorts, indicating at least partial effectiveness of recent policies aimed at improving the quality of rural schools.
Laboratories of Autocracy: The Landscape of Central–Local Dynamics in China’s Policy Universe
Kaicheng Luo, Shaoda Wang, David Yang, Feb 25, 2026This article shows how individual officials drive innovation, how competition shapes diffusion, and how a post-2013 turn toward central control has reduced local adaptation—often at a real economic cost.
