nep-cna New Economics Papers
on China
Issue of 2012‒02‒20
three papers chosen by
Zheng Fang
Ohio State University

  1. Chinese Immigrants in the U.S. Labor Market: Effects of Post-Tiananmen Immigration Policy By Orrenius, Pia M.; Zavodny, Madeline; Kerr, Emily
  2. China’s Financial System: Opportunities and Challenges By Franklin Allen; Jun “QJ” Qian; Chenying Zhang; Mengxin Zhao
  3. China's Potential Future Growth and Gains from Trade Policy Bargaining: Some Numerical Simulation Results By Chunding Li; John Whalley

  1. By: Orrenius, Pia M. (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas); Zavodny, Madeline (Agnes Scott College); Kerr, Emily (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas)
    Abstract: The Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and ensuing government crackdown affected Chinese nationals not only at home but around the world. The U.S. government responded to the events in China by enacting multiple measures to protect Chinese nationals present in the U.S. It first suspended all forced departures among Chinese nationals present in the country as of June 1989 and later gave them authorization to work legally. The Chinese Student Protection Act, passed in October 1992, made those Chinese nationals eligible for lawful permanent resident status. These actions applied to about 80,000 Chinese nationals residing in the U.S. on student or other temporary visas or illegally. Receiving permission to work legally and then a green card is likely to have affected recipients' labor market outcomes. This study uses 1990 and 2000 census data to examine employment and earnings among Chinese immigrants who were likely beneficiaries of the U.S. government's actions. Relative to immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea – countries not covered by the post-Tiananmen immigration policy measures – highly-educated immigrants from mainland China experienced significant employment and earnings gains during the 1990s. Chinese immigrants who arrived in the U.S in time to benefit from the measures also had higher relative earnings in 2000 than Chinese immigrants who arrived too late to benefit. The results suggest that getting legal work status and then a green card has a significant positive effect on skilled migrants' labor market outcomes.
    Keywords: immigration, Chinese Student Protection Act, employment, earnings
    JEL: J15
    Date: 2012–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6287&r=cna
  2. By: Franklin Allen; Jun “QJ” Qian; Chenying Zhang; Mengxin Zhao
    Abstract: We provide a comprehensive review of China’s financial system, and explore directions of future development. First, the financial system has been dominated by a large banking sector. In recent years banks have made considerable progress in reducing the amount of non-performing loans and improving their efficiency. Second, the role of the stock market in allocating resources in the economy has been limited and ineffective. We discuss issues related to the further development of China’s stock market and other financial markets. Third, the most successful part of the financial system, in terms of supporting the growth of the overall economy, is a non-standard sector that consists of alternative financing channels, governance mechanisms, and institutions. The co-existence of this sector with banks and markets can continue to support the growth of the Hybrid Sector (non-state, non-listed firms). Finally, among the policies that will help to sustain stable economic growth in China are those that reduce the likelihood of damaging financial crises, including a banking sector crisis, a real estate or stock market crash, and a “twin crisis” in the currency market and banking sector.
    JEL: J2 K0 O5
    Date: 2012–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17828&r=cna
  3. By: Chunding Li; John Whalley
    Abstract: Numerical simulation analysis of bargaining solutions is little developed in existing literature. Here we use a multi country, single period numerical general equilibrium model which captures China and her major trading partners and examine the outcomes of trade policy bargaining solutions (bargaining over tariffs and financial transfers) over time as China grows more rapidly than her trade partners. We compute gains relative to non-cooperative Nash equilibria for a range of model parameterizations. This yields a measure of both absolute and relative gain to China from bargaining. We calibrate our model to base case data for 2008 and use a model formulation where there are heterogeneous goods across countries. The gains from trade bargaining accrue more heavily to other countries when we use 2008 data rather than later year data. We then consider the impacts out into the future of different country growth rates which sharply increases China’s relative size. Our objective is to assess how China’s gains from bargaining change over time; whether they grow at a faster rate than GDP growth and for which parameterizations. Our simulation results indicate that China’s welfare gain from trade bargaining will increase over time if countries keep their present GDP growth rates for several decades, but there are major difference when using different bargaining solution concepts. These differences have not been noted in existing literature but have an intuitive explanation. Our results also indicate that if China jointly bargains along with India, Brazil and other developing countries with the OECD, China’s gain will further increase. Bargaining gains are also sensitive to country size. When we use PPP to adjust China’s relative GDP size; China’s trade bargaining welfare gain increases by about 37%.
    JEL: C68 C78 D60
    Date: 2012–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17826&r=cna

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