A Bridge on Economic Issues between China and the World
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Contract Design and Insurance Take-up
Jing Cai, Apr 22, 2026Offering farmers a menu of insurance contracts instead of a single option significantly increases insurance take-up, by changing how farmers evaluate options within the contract menu.
Equity Financing and Exports: Evidence from IPO Approvals in China
Robin Kaiji Gong, Yao Amber Li, Stephen Teng Sun, Shang-Jin Wei, Jun 03, 2026Access to public equity through IPOs enables Chinese exporters to expand into more foreign markets by financing the intangible investments and risk taking that bank credit alone cannot support, suggesting that well-functioning equity markets are a critical but overlooked ingredient for export-led growth in developing countries.
Geographic Imbalances in Access to Credit: The Roles of Branch Networks, Synergies, and Market Power
Victor Aguirregabiria, Robert Clark, Hui Wang, Jun 10, 2026Concerns about unequal access to credit across regions have become central to policy debates in many economies. Financial integration does not necessarily guarantee that funds flow to areas where credit demand is highest. Instead, geographic frictions, local market power, and institutional constraints may generate persistent “credit deserts”—regions with limited access to external finance despite substantial demand for credit.
When Cash Unlocks Mobility: China’s Shantytown Renovation Program and the Housing Markets
Zhiguo He, Zehao Liu, Xinle Pang, Yang Su, Kunru Zou, Jul 08, 2026The household finance literature typically ignores household migration decisions and how such decisions interact with financial conditions. We find that a relaxation of borrowing constraints can facilitate household migration to higher-tier cities where borrowing constraints are more binding than in cities of origin. Such endogenous location upgrading amplifies the increase in household housing expenditures following the relaxation of borrowing constraints, as well as intercity home price disparities.
When Forward-Looking Accounting Meets an Unexpected Crisis: Does the Expected Credit Loss Model Amplify Economic Downturns?
Chen Chen, Difang Huang, Jun 24, 2026This article examines whether the expected credit loss (ECL) model, introduced to make bank provisioning more forward-looking, can inadvertently amplify downturns when a crisis arrives without warning. Using China’s staggered ECL adoption and granular loan-level data from the COVID-19 period, we show that ECL banks cut lending more sharply, raised spreads, and became more selective than incurred credit loss banks serving the same borrowers, with persistent consequences for firms.
