Housing, Household Debt, and the Business Cycle: An Application to China and Korea
China and South Korea both experienced substantial increases in household debt through 2021, and now both countries face a weakening economy. This essay gleans lessons from the “credit-driven household demand channel” (e.g., Mian and Sufi 2018) to explore how the two economies will fare in the years ahead. On the positive side, neither country is at risk of a severe financial crisis, and both countries have a strong current account position. On the negative side, consumer spending in both countries could be quite weak in the years ahead. For China, the biggest risk is that distortions in the production sector aimed at boosting the property market were a major driver of growth during the boom, and it is unclear how growth can continue to be sustained with the property market stumbling.
伪外资
针对内地上市公司的内部人为了规避大陆的穿透监管而通过沪深港通绕道投资A股这一现象，我们基于沪深港通中所有北向托管机构在股票层面的持股明细，提供了系统性的证据。在2018年两地监管层推出北向投资者身份识别码之后，北向资金流与内地上市公司的内部人在交易上的协同性减弱，且北向资金流对A股收益的预测能力在穿透改革之后亦明显下降。这些变化在更有可能潜藏伪外资的北向托管机构中尤为显著，包括声誉欠佳的外资托管机构以及在内地和境外交叉运营的内资托管机构。本文阐明了资本市场融合过程中跨境监管合作的重要性。
通向中国的沪深港通
在所有通往中国资本市场的路径中，互联互通机制（包括沪深港通和债券通等）作为中国资本市场对外开放的最新进程，很快成为中国引入外资的主要渠道。2014年4月10日，中国证监会（内地监管机构）与证券及期货事务监察委员会（中国香港监管机构）发表联合声明，通过了内地交易所与香港交易所展开互联互通试点的计划，允许两地投资者买卖对方交易所上市的股票。据此，沪港通与深港通相继于2014年11月17日和2016年12月5日正式开通。
通过分析沪深港通中的跨境资金如何应对宏观层面的冲击，我们发现与潜在的伪外资相比，真外资更可能受到美国货币政策冲击、外汇风险、美国股票市场走势以及跨市场估值差异（即AH股溢价）的影响。研究的发现彰显了市场融合过程中关注分析异质性跨境投资者的重要性。
International Spillover Effects of Air Pollution: Evidence from Mortality and Health Data
We study the international spillover effects of air pollution by developing a framework that integrates recent advances in atmospheric science with econometric estimation and microdata on mortality and health. Combining transboundary particle trajectory data with the universe of individual-level mortality and emergency room visit data in South Korea, we find that transboundary air pollution from China significantly increases mortality and morbidity in South Korea. Using our estimates, we quantify that a recent Chinese environmental regulation “war on pollution” had a substantial international spillover benefit. Finally, we examine China’s strategic pollution reductions and provide its implications for the potential Coasian bargaining.
Subjective Performance Evaluation, Influence Activities, and Bureaucratic Work Behavior: Evidence from China
Subjective performance evaluation is widely used by firms and governments to provide work incentives. However, delegating evaluation power to local leadership could induce influence activities: employees might devote too much effort to impressing/pleasing their evaluator, relative to working toward the goals of the organization itself. We conduct a large-scale randomized field experiment among Chinese local civil servants to study the existence and implications of influence activities. We find that civil servants do engage in evaluator-specific influence to affect evaluation outcomes, partly in the form of reallocating work efforts toward job tasks that are more important and observable to the evaluator. Importantly, we show that introducing uncertainty about the evaluator’s identity discourages evaluator-specific influence activities and improves bureaucratic work performance.
When Information Conflicts with Obligations: the Role of Motivated Cognition
We experimentally test how psychological motivations can impact the processing of purely objective information. We first document that, when the high-stakes College Entrance Exam is held in the month of Ramadan, Chinese Muslim students perform significantly worse. When asked about the impact of fasting, they severely underestimate the cost of taking the exam during Ramadan, even when presented with direct empirical evidence. In the experiment, we randomly offer students reading materials in which well-respected Muslim clerics explain that it is permissible to postpone the fast until after the exam. Consistent with an interpretation of motivated cognition, students who receive the material distort the statistics about the fasting cost significantly less, and become more accepting of delaying the fast for the exam.
Does the Squeaky Wheel Get More Grease? The Direct and Indirect Effects of Citizen Participation on Environmental Governance in China
We conducted a nationwide field experiment in China to evaluate the direct and indirect impacts of assigning firms to public or private citizen appeals treatments when they violate pollution standards. There are three main findings. First, public appeals to the regulator through social media substantially reduce violations and pollution emissions, while private appeals cause more modest environmental improvements. Second, experimentally adding “likes” and “shares” to social media appeals increases regulatory effort, suggesting visibility as an important mechanism. Third, treatment pollution reductions are not offset by control firm increases, based on randomly varying the proportion of treatment firms at the prefecture-level.
中国的工业用地折扣：基于公共财政视角
中国土地市场的一个鲜明特点是工业用地具有较高的价格折扣：工业用途土地的价格远比住宅用地低廉。不同于现有文献基于工业行业补贴或促进产业发展的解释，本研究强调未来土地税收的重要性，并发现地方公共财政动机可以在很大程度上解释这种价格差距。在“土地财政”系统下，土地出让是中国地方政府的重要收入来源之一。本研究的结果说明，地方政府作为中国土地市场的垄断者，面临供应住宅用地或工业用地的权衡，并且该权衡会受工业用地和住宅用地收入在时间上的不同现金流、地方政府的财政约束、地方政府与其他层级政府的税收分成的影响。
中国的股票质押：投资上市公司还是初创公司？
本文研究了中国的股票质押与创业活动之间的联系，挑战了传统认知中股票质押所筹资金会循环应用于上市公司的观点。股票质押所筹资金由质押其可公开交易股份的股东自行处置，本文通过问卷调研显示，大多数（67.3%）上市公司的第一大股东将质押资金应用于上市公司之外。通过将工商数据与股权质押数据相联系，本文验证了股东质押交易与创业活动之间的正相关关系。2013年中国推出场内股票质押业务，这一政策变化更有利于自然人股东进行股票质押。利用这一政策变化作为准自然实验，本文通过双重差分检验，发现相较于法人股东，自然人股东的创业活动在政策变化之后显著提高。本文还发现，更容易进行股票质押的股东会更多地投资于增长潜力高于中位数的行业。
中国的政策试验：关于政策学习的政治经济学研究
许多政府通过进行各种形式的政策试验来降低不确定性和促进对于政策的学习理解。然而，人们对于政策试验的特征、以及试验结构如何影响政策学习的过程和结果知之甚少。我们旨在描述和理解中国自1980 年以来的政策试验，这是近代历史上规模最大、最系统的政策试验之一。我们收集整理了过去40年在中国进行的政策试验的数据，发现了以下三个主要结果。首先，超过 80% 的试验选择在当地经济发展更好的区域进行，并且这种正向选择偏差在很大程度上可归因于不同行政等级的激励机制不一致。其次，地方官员会分配更多资源来确保试验的成功，而这种策略性努力在政策推广到整个国家时是不可复制的。第三，中央政府没有充分考虑样本选择和策略性努力的存在，从而影响政策学习的结果、并扭曲由试验推广的全国性政策。综上所述，这些结果表明，虽然中国的行政体制和制度背景使得进行大规模政策试验成为可能，但复杂的政治环境也可能限制政策学习的范围并扭曲政策方向。