nep-cna New Economics Papers
on China
Issue of 2025–11–10
ten papers chosen by
Zheng Fang, Ohio State University


  1. How the US-China trade conflict boosted exports and employment in Mexico By Natalie Chen; Dennis Novy; Diego Solorzano
  2. "The USMCA Is Not Competitive Against China" By Arturo Huerta G.
  3. Institutional reform, path development and firm creation: evidence from China By Wang, Han; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés
  4. Green Product Exports, Domestic Value Added and Trade Policies : Firm-Level Evidence from China By Kee, Hiau Looi; Taglioni, Daria; Xie, Enze
  5. Crowd-sourced Chinese genealogies as a tool for historical demography By Xue, Melanie
  6. The Phantom Menace in Agriculture: How Lagged Droughts Distort Input Decisions and Create Environmental Deadweight Loss By Sun, Dingqiang; Qie, Xueting; Huang, Kaixing
  7. Ecologically unequal exchange and transition-critical minerals : China, the US, and mining countries under shifting geo-economics By Tanguy Bonnet
  8. "Financial Fragility Without Financial Instability: Reform in the Chinese Banking System: Zhu Rongji's and Its Aftermath" By Leonardo Burlamaqui
  9. How FinTech affects financial sustainability: Evidence from Chinese commercial banks using a three-stage network DEA-Malmquist model By Yudi Yang; Fan Yang; Xiajie Yi; Dongwei He
  10. Is the occupational evolution of Chinese cities driven by industrial structures? Insights from industry-occupation cross-relatedness By Rongjun Ao; Ling Zhong; Jing Chen; Xiaojing Li; Xiaoqi Zhou

  1. By: Natalie Chen; Dennis Novy; Diego Solorzano
    Abstract: Lower-paid workers in Mexican firms gained as exports shifted.
    Keywords: Tariffs, Globalisation, Trade, US, United States, Mexico, China
    Date: 2025–10–21
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:711
  2. By: Arturo Huerta G.
    Abstract: The governments of the US and Canada are pressuring Mexico not to import products or accept investments from China, such that Mexico would be forced to import products from them instead. As a result, Mexico would be unable to leverage Chinese investments that could compromise the interests of the US and Canada. The Mexican government has yielded to such pressures and said it will reduce its relationship with China, choosing instead to buy from the US and Canada. The government is betting on greater integration and subordination with USMCA partners, despite a lack of improved development conditions for the country as a result. Mexico has not grown more than 2.4 percent on average per year and in the last six years the growth rate has been 0.7 percent on average per year, coupled with the foreign trade deficit and the growing dependence on capital inflows.
    Date: 2025–08
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:levypn:25-6
  3. By: Wang, Han; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés
    Abstract: This paper examines whether and how government-led institutional changes can reshape regional industrial development trajectories. Using quarterly panel data from Chinese cities between 2019 and 2024, we assess the impact of reforms of the business environment on firm creation within both path creation and path dependent industries. Applying a staggered difference-in-differences approach combined with coarsened exact matching, our findings reveal that business environment reforms significantly increase firm creation in path creation industries, especially in high-tech sectors and cities with initially weaker business environments. Key mechanisms identified include enhancements in the market environment and government services, which are central to driving these effects.
    Keywords: path creation; institutional change; business environment; path dependence; firm creation
    JEL: O11 R11 R12
    Date: 2025–10–27
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129990
  4. By: Kee, Hiau Looi; Taglioni, Daria; Xie, Enze
    Abstract: This paper examines the roles of tariff and non-tariff measures in China’s meteoric rise as the world’s leading green product supplier. Evidence from customs transaction data from 2000 to 2016 shows that processing firms propelled the export surge, utilizing the expanding domestic material varieties due to trade liberalization benefiting their upstream suppliers. The substitution of domestic materials for imported materials raised the domestic value-added ratio of the processing firms and the exports of green products. A two-sector model rationalizes the empirical results. Trade policy liberalization, together with industrial policies, market scale, and synchronized global demand, contributed to China’s dominance.
    Date: 2025–10–23
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11240
  5. By: Xue, Melanie
    Abstract: This paper introduces a structured approach for using genealogical records from FamilySearch to study Chinese historical demography. As a proof of concept, we focus on over 190, 000 digitized records from a single surname, drawn from many provinces and spanning multiple centuries. These lineage-based microdata include individual-level birth, death, and kinship information, which we clean, validate, and geocode using consistent rules and standardized place names. We begin by documenting descriptive patterns in population growth, sex ratios, and migration. Migration was overwhelmingly local, with longdistance moves rare and concentrated in a small number of lineages. Outmigration rose to a high point between 1750 and 1850 and then declined in later cohorts and generations. We then use the genealogical data to test specific hypotheses. Male-biased sex ratios—likely influenced by female infanticide—are strongly associated with higher rates of male childlessness. Migration rates fall sharply with patrilineal generational depth, offering micro-level evidence that clans became more sedentary over time. Together, these findings show how genealogical records can be used to reconstruct long-run demographic patterns and to assess social processes such as kinship, mobility, and reproductive exclusion. The approach is replicable and extensible to other surnames and regions as data coverage improves.
    Keywords: crowd-surfed genealogies; historical demography; China
    JEL: J11 J13 N10 N35
    Date: 2025–10
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129939
  6. By: Sun, Dingqiang; Qie, Xueting; Huang, Kaixing
    Abstract: The overuse of chemical fertilizers is a global problem that has led to a series of adverse effects on the environment and human well-being. This study identifies a novel cause of fertilizer overuse: farmers’ irrational responses to lagged droughts. Employing unique plot-level data from maize production in China, we find that while drought shocks in any given year are independent, a drought in the previous year increases fertilizer use in the current year by 14.2%, with no positive effect on yield. A simple extrapolation suggests that this irrational response to lagged droughts causes an annual total fertilizer overuse of 1.1 million tons in China. This could translate to a monetary cost of 486 mil lion USD, drinking water pollution of 2-6 billion cubic meters, and carbon emissions of 8.9 million tons. Fertilizer overuse is expected to increase substantially under future climate change scenarios. We identify investment in irrigation, land consolidation toward high-productivity farmers, and the promotion of drought-tolerant crop varieties as key approaches to mitigating drought-induced fertilizer overuse.
    Keywords: drought, irrational response, fertilizer overuse, environmental pollution
    JEL: D91 Q12 Q15 Q18 Q54
    Date: 2025–09–05
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:126068
  7. By: Tanguy Bonnet
    Abstract: Low-carbon technologies are highly intensive in critical minerals for which extraction and transformation generate heavy socio-environmental negative externalities. Global trade flows of such materials and technologies are part of a singular macroeconomy, filled with geopolitical issues and national strategies.This paper aims to draw on environmental justice and ecological macroeconomics theoretical frameworks in order to assess the global material allocation of critical minerals and low-carbon technologies, and question its equity and efficiency, in the lens of the ecologically unequal exchange theory.Peripheral mining countries assume the heavy socio-environmental costs related to the extractive activities, while global trade flows enable an asymmetrical material allocation toward richer core countries. Two countries stand out : China, as the semi-periphery, and the US, as the challenged core.The paper also discusses how shifting geopolitics, geo-economic fragmentation and national strategies could modify such patterns of ecologically unequal exchange.
    Keywords: critical minerals ; global trade flows ; ecologically unequal exchange ; environmental justice ; geo-economic fragmentation
    JEL: Q42 L72 F18 Q37 Q56 Q57
    Date: 2025
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2025-39
  8. By: Leonardo Burlamaqui
    Abstract: Between the late 1990s and mid-2000s, China's banking sector underwent a profound yet largely underappreciated transformation--arguably one of the most consequential episodes of financial restructuring in recent economic history. This paper analyzes the Chinese banking reform process through a Minskyian lens, with particular attention to the conceptual ambiguity between financial fragility and financial instability in Minsky's own formulation. The core contribution lies in demonstrating that the reforms implemented under Zhu Rongji successfully resolved a condition of deep and systemic financial fragility without tipping into full-blown financial instability. In that sense, China’s banking overhaul constitutes a non-Minskyian resolution to what was, in classical terms, a Minsky-type problem. The Chinese case thus provides a rare empirical example of mounting financial fragility managed without crisis--offering critical insights for contemporary efforts at financial stabilization under conditions of systemic vulnerability.
    JEL: B5 E02 G28
    Date: 2025–07
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_1086
  9. By: Yudi Yang; Fan Yang; Xiajie Yi; Dongwei He
    Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of financial technology (FinTech) on the financial sustainability (FS) of commercial banks. We employ a three-stage network DEA-Malmquist model to evaluate the FS performance of 104 Chinese commercial banks from 2015 to 2023. A two-way fixed effects model is utilized to examine the effects of FinTech on FS, revealing a significant negative relationship. Further mechanistic analysis indicates that FinTech primarily undermines FS by eroding banks' loan efficiency and profitability. Notably, banks with more patents or listed status demonstrate greater resilience to FinTech disruptions. These findings help banks identify external risks stemming from FinTech development, and by elucidating the mechanisms underlying FS, enhance their capacity to monitor and manage FS in the era of rapid FinTech advancement.
    Date: 2025–11
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2511.02608
  10. By: Rongjun Ao; Ling Zhong; Jing Chen; Xiaojing Li; Xiaoqi Zhou
    Abstract: While prior research has emphasized the path-dependent nature of occupational systems, it has paid limited attention to how local industrial structures contribute to occupational change. To address this gap, this study examines how regional occupational evolution is shaped by two distinct mechanisms: (1) path-dependent skill and knowledge transfer, whereby new occupations emerge through the recombination of existing occupational structures; and (2) industry-driven task reconfiguration, through which industrial upgrading reshapes the demand for occupations. To operationalize these dynamics, the concept of industry–occupation cross-relatedness is introduced, capturing the proximity between new occupations and a region’s existing industrial portfolio. Drawing on panel data from 241 Chinese cities between 2000 and 2015, the study estimates the effects of both occupational relatedness and cross-relatedness on new occupation specialization. The results reveal that both mechanisms significantly promote occupational evolution, yet they tend to function as substitutes rather than complements. Furthermore, their effects differ across skill levels: high-skilled occupations are more responsive to industrial transformation, low-skilled occupations to occupational pathways, while medium-skilled occupations exhibit relatively weak responsiveness to both. These findings underscore the importance of structural conditions and skill heterogeneity in shaping regional patterns of occupational change.
    Keywords: Occupational Evolution; Path Dependence; Chinese Cities; Industry-Occupation Cross-Relatedness; Skill Heterogeneity
    JEL: R11 O14 N95
    Date: 2025–11
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2533

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