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on China |
| By: | Dawn Chinagorom-Abiakalam; B. Ravikumar |
| Abstract: | In 2002, many countries around the world traded more with the U.S. than they did with China. An analysis shows this tally had reversed by 2022. |
| Keywords: | United States; China; trade |
| Date: | 2025–06–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:l00001:100044 |
| By: | Fuchs, Andreas; Kaplan, Lennart; Kis-Katos, Krisztina; Leue, Sebastian; Turbanisch, Felix; Wang, Feicheng |
| Abstract: | The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically heightened global demand for critical medical goods, with China being a key supplier. This paper examines the political factors that eased global access to face masks, a vital product during the initial phase of the pandemic. Employing a triple difference-in-differences event study framework, we compare the export dynamics of face masks with those of similar products. Our findings indicate that face mask prices surged after the outbreak of the pandemic, and China’s exports increased in response. Amid global shortages, political alignment at the national and subnational levels, particularly through political ties with Chinese provinces, played a significant role in driving the increase in China’s face mask exports to partner countries. These political connections contributed to export growth at both the extensive and intensive margins. Moreover, sister city relationships appear to have assisted in mitigating the early price increases. |
| Keywords: | Strategic exports, COVID-19, Health crisis management, Medical equipment, Face masks, Diplomatic relations |
| JEL: | F14 F59 H12 H77 H84 I18 P33 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwkie:318268 |
| By: | Liu, C.; Wang, J; Reiner, D. M. |
| Abstract: | Pollution leakage occurs when firms shift pollution-intensive activities to lessregulated regions, potentially undermining environmental policies. Given data limitations in developing countries, investment flows offer an alternative to traditional leakage measures. Using manually collected investment data from 390 listed pollution-intensive firms in China, our study evaluates whether regionally differentiated regulations under the 2013 Clean Air Policy triggered domestic pollution leakage. Applying a difference-in-differences approach, we find that regulated firms significantly increased pollution-related investments in subsidiaries located in less-regulated areas after the policy. Pollution leakage patterns vary by region, with firms in the Three Regions (centered around Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou respectively) relocating investments to both nearby provinces and distant western China, while those in ten other major city clusters primarily shifted investments to nearby areas. We also show that industrial agglomeration, transport infrastructure, and weak innovation capacity drive this relocation. Our findings suggest that investment flows offer a valuable lens for identifying pollution leakage, and that unintended east-to-west transfers may undermine environmental gains. Policymakers should strengthen disclosure requirements, target pollution control funding to affected regions, and support green innovation to reduce relocation incentives. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Regulation, Domestic Pollution Leakage, Air Pollution, Listed Pollution-Intensive Firms, Pollution-Related Investments |
| JEL: | L25 L60 O13 Q53 Q58 R11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2533 |
| By: | Goghie, Alexandru-Stefan |
| Abstract: | This article explores the geopolitical implications of China’s introduction of RMB-denominated oil futures contracts, framed through the lens of ‘power-as-autonomy’. It argues that this development marks a strategic shift in the global energy landscape, particularly within the highly dollarized oil market, where pricing and trade have historically been dominated by USD-denominated benchmarks - such as Brent and WTI. By seeking to create a parallel financial infrastructure, also manifested through these RMB-denominated oil futures contracts, China is pursuing a ‘de-dollarization’ strategy aimed at enhancing its autonomy from the United States (US). Through the examination of four key geopolitical outcomes of these RMB-denominated oil futures contracts - enhancing internationalization of the RMB, the reduction of the ‘Asian premium’ in crude oil markets, strengthened energy and financial security for China, and resistance to potential US-led sanctions - this article situates China’s efforts within the larger framework of geopolitical competition between the US and China, highlighting how this shift may reshape international trade relationships and challenges the dominance of dollarized markets. |
| Date: | 2025–05–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:ftsg6_v2 |
| By: | Cui, Jun |
| Abstract: | This study examines how competition in the banking sector affects the financial capabilities of non-financial enterprises in China, with a particular focus on the moderating role of shadow banking's financial innovation. Using panel data from 7, 250 firm-year observations of Chinese private banks collected from CNRDS, Wind, and CSMAR databases from 2017 to 2022, we apply a fixed-effects model to investigate this relationship. Our findings indicate that increased banking competition significantly enhances non-financial enterprises' financial capabilities, particularly in terms of financing flexibility and capital allocation efficiency. Moreover, shadow banking's financial innovation positively moderates this relationship, strengthening the positive effect of banking competition on firms' financial capabilities. The results are robust across various alternative specifications and endogeneity tests. This study contributes to the literature on financial market competition, corporate finance, and the evolving role of shadow banking in China's financial ecosystem, providing important implications for policymakers and corporate financial management. |
| Date: | 2025–05–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:7jtwc_v1 |
| By: | Chang Liu; Jingrong Wang; David M Reiner |
| Keywords: | Environmental regulation, domestic pollution leakage, air pollution, listed pollution-intensive firms, pollution-related investments |
| JEL: | L25 L60 O13 Q53 Q58 R11 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:enp:wpaper:eprg2511 |
| By: | Cui, Jun |
| Abstract: | This study examines how common institutional ownership influences the financialization of non-financial enterprises in China, with a specific focus on the moderating role of digital financial risk. Using a comprehensive dataset of 6, 250 firm-year observations from Chinese private banks between 2013 and 2023, we apply a fixed-effects panel regression model to analyze this relationship. Our findings reveal that common institutional ownership significantly enhances the financialization level of non-financial enterprises, particularly when digital financial risk is moderate. However, this positive relationship weakens when digital financial risk reaches high levels. Thus, these results contribute to the institutional ownership literature by highlighting the complex interplay between ownership structures, financialization strategies, and the emerging digital financial environment in China's banking sector. Our study provides important implications for corporate governance frameworks and regulatory policies in emerging financial markets. |
| Date: | 2025–05–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:6ydzp_v1 |
| By: | Bluhm, Richard; Dreher, Axel; Fuchs, Andreas; Parks, Bradley C.; Strange, Austin M.; Tierney, Michael J. |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the causal effect of transport infrastructure on the spatial distribution of economic activity within subnational regions across a large number of developing countries. To do so, we introduce a new global dataset of geolocated Chinese grant- and loan-financed development projects from 2000 to 2014 and combine it with measures of spatial concentration based on remotely sensed data. We find that Chinese financed transportation projects decentralize economic activity within regions, as measured by a spatial Gini coefficient, by 2.2 percentage points. The treatment effects are particularly strong in regions that are less developed, more urbanized, and located closer to cities. |
| Keywords: | Development finance, Transport costsInfrastructure, Foreign aid, Spatial concentration, China |
| JEL: | F35 R11 R12 P33 O18 O19 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwkie:318203 |
| By: | Si, Yafei (University of Melbourne); Chen, Gang (University of Melbourne); Zhou, Zhongliang (Xi’an Jiaotong University); Yip, Winnie (Harvard University); Chen, Xi (Yale University) |
| Abstract: | There is a lack of understanding of what may drive gender disparities in healthcare utilization and outcomes. We present novel evidence on the impact of physician-patient gender match on healthcare quality using standardized patients (SPs) in an experiment, and collected interactions between SPs and physicians in a primary care setting. We find that, compared with female physicians treating female SPs, female physicians treating male SPs had a 23.4 pp increase in correct diagnosis and a 19.0 pp increase in correct drug prescriptions. Despite substantial gains in healthcare quality, there was no significant rise in medical costs or time investment. The gains in care quality were partly attributed to better physician-patient communications, not the presence of more clinical information. More importantly, female physicians treating male SPs prescribed more unnecessary tests but fewer unnecessary drugs to balance their time commitment and costs. The results suggest the role of gender norms and physician defensive behavior when female physicians treat male SPs. Our findings imply that improving patient centeredness may lead to significant gains in the quality of healthcare with modest costs, while reducing gender gaps in care quality. |
| Keywords: | standardized patient, healthcare quality, gender disparities, experiment, China |
| JEL: | I11 I12 I14 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17894 |
| By: | Laura Alfaro; Harald Fadinger; Jan S. Schymik; Gede Virananda |
| Abstract: | Trade and industrial policies, while primarily intended to support domestic industries, may unintentionally stimulate technological progress abroad. We document this mechanism in the case of rare earth elements (REEs) – critical inputs for manufacturing at the knowledge frontier, with low elasticity of substitution, inelastic supply, and high production and processing concentration. To assess the importance of REEs across industries, we construct an input-output table that includes disaggregated REE inputs. Using REE-related patents categorized by a large language model, sectoral TFP data, trade data, and physical and chemical substitution properties of REEs, we show that the introduction of REE export restrictions by China led to a global surge in innovation and exports in REE-intensive downstream sectors outside of China. To rationalize these findings and quantify the global impact of the adverse REE supply shock, we develop a quantitative general equilibrium model of trade and directed technological change. We also propose a structural method to estimate sectoral input substitution elasticities for REEs from patent data and find REEs to be complementary inputs. Under endogenous technologies and with complementary inputs, input supply restrictions on REEs induce a surge in REE-enhancing innovation and lead to an expansion of REE-intensive downstream sectors. |
| JEL: | E0 E6 F02 F13 F14 F42 F6 O1 O33 O47 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33877 |
| By: | Vikesh Amin (Central Michigan University); Jere R. Behrman (University of Pennsylvania); Jason M. Fletcher (University of Wisconsin-Madison, IZA, and NBER); Carlos A. Flores (California Polytechnic State University); Alfonso Flores-Lagunes (W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, IZA, and GLO); Iliana Kohler (University of Pennsylvania); Hans-Peter Kohler (University of Pennsylvania); Shana D. Stites (University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | Higher schooling attainment is associated with better cognitive function at older ages, but it remains unclear whether the relationship is causal. We estimate causal effects of schooling on performances on the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s Disease (CERAD) word-recall (memory) test at older ages in China, Ghana, India, Mexico, Russia, and South Africa. We used harmonized data (n=30, 896) on older adults (=50 years) from the World Health Organization Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health. We applied an established nonparametric partialidentification approach that bounds causal effects of increasing schooling attainment at different parts of the schooling distributions under relatively weak assumptions. We find that an additional year of schooling, moving from none into primary school, increased word-recall scores by between 0.01–0.13 standard deviations (SDs) in China, 0.01–0.06SDs in Ghana, 0.02–0.09SDs in India, 0.02–0.12SDs in Mexico, and 0–0.07SDs in South Africa. No results were obtained for Russia at this margin due to the low proportion of older adults with primary schooling or lower. At higher parts of the schooling distributions (e.g., high-school or university completion) the bounds cannot statistically reject null effects. Our results indicate that increasing schooling from never attended to primary had long-lasting effects on memory decades later in life for older adults in five diverse low-and-middle-income countries. |
| Keywords: | schooling, cognitive function, CERAD, LMICs, nonparametric identification |
| JEL: | C14 I15 I25 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upj:weupjo:25-418 |
| By: | Ruixue Jia; James Kai-sing Kung |
| Abstract: | This study reviews the culture and institutions of Confucianism and explores their implications for the trajectory of China’s historical development. We trace the origins and evolution of the core elements of Confucianism and synthesize research on its relationship to clan culture, state institutions, and a broad array of societal values. We also highlight promising but underexplored directions for future research. While Confucianism is often invoked to explain China’s absence from the Industrial Revolution and its lack of democratization, we caution against such retrospective determinism. As a multidimensional and abstract tradition, Confucianism likely allows for varied interpretations and institutional adaptations across time and context. |
| JEL: | N15 O43 P51 Z10 Z13 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33883 |
| By: | Schneider, Jonas; Süß, Juliana |
| Abstract: | According to the US government, the Russian government is developing a programme to arm some of its satellites with nuclear warheads. Should the Kremlin acquire this capability, it could destroy key parts of the civilian satellite infrastructure by detonating a single nuclear weapon in low Earth orbit. Important US military satellites are also located in space. The use of Russian nuclear weapons there could severely weaken the US military and potentially trigger a military escalation on Earth. The deployment of a nuclear warhead in space would constitute a violation of the Outer Space Treaty. The development of this capability appears to align with Russia's strategic approach of undermining the established international order and engaging in high-risk actions to extract concessions from the West, particularly in the context of Ukraine. The Kremlin is also attempting to incorporate the increasingly militarised domain of space into this strategy by using non-nuclear anti-satellite weapons. Europe must be prepared to address this ongoing challenge. |
| Keywords: | Russia, United States, China, satellites, Cosmos 2553, nuclear warheads, low Earth orbit, military escalation, Ukraine, Outer Space Treaty, jamming and spoofing, electromagnetic pulse (EMP) |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:swpcom:318319 |