China Economic Quarterly International最新文献

We construct an instrumental variable for the Internet penetration rate using China's “8-horizontal-8-longitudinal” optical cable network to identify the impact of the Internet on the agglomeration of producer services in cities. We find that, (i) the Internet promotes the agglomeration of producer services to cities with larger population sizes due to the higher knowledge intensity of large cities; (ii) the Internet can strengthen the role of the expansion of the manufacturing industry in a city or its surrounding areas in promoting producer services agglomeration in large cities, which in turn promotes the agglomeration of producer services to large cities.

China's multilevel medical education system generates tremendous physician human capital heterogeneity. This paper attempts to take advantage of the differences level of doctors' human capital to reveal the relationship between healthcare service mismatch and doctors' human capital using the DRGs data of a province in China. This paper found that: first, a higher level of physician human capital (PHC) in hospitals significantly increases the mismatch of medical services; second, there is a complementary effect between doctors' human capital and medical care accessibility, which significantly increases the degree of healthcare service mismatch, and these conclusions still hold after controlling the endogeneity and a series of robustness tests. Third, the mismatch effect is more significant in surgery than that of in internal medicine departments and the mismatch effect is stronger in county hospitals than that of provincial hospitals. Therefore, both patients' great confidence in superior medical services and the heterogeneity of PHC contribute to the mismatch of medical services in China.

This paper employs the difference-in-differences (DID) to investigate the impact of “going global” on enterprises' financialization. Baseline estimation shows that the degree of financialization of enterprises participating in the Belt and Road Initiative was lower compared with those not participating in the Initiative. Mechanism analysis reveals that “going global” through Belt and Road Initiative has improved enterprises' profitability of real sector investment and inhibited their motivation of financialization. These findings provide new perspectives for more effectively promoting enterprises to participate in the Belt and Road construction and helping inhibit enterprises’ financialization.

Targeted Poverty Alleviation (TPA) is an important leverage for China to overcome poverty. While its economic effects are well studied, less is known about the social impact of TPA. Based on trial documents data from the China Judgments Online, we use DID method and find the growth rate of criminal offenses reduced by over 20% after the implementation of TPA. The income growth effect from TPA is the primary mechanism for suppressing criminal crimes. Improved employment plays a role as well. Our work not only reveals the relationship between TPA and the enhancement of societal security, characterized by fewer criminal offenses, in the background of completing the first Centenary Goal, but also sheds light on how to fulfil the Peaceful China Initiative in the second Centenary Goal.

We use the strengthening of China's emission target control regime during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period as a quasi-natural experiment to study the impact of strengthened environmental regulation on firm's emissions and other economic performances, and find that more rigorous environmental regulations induce firms to cut down their emissions, mainly through the “technology effect.” The structural decomposition shows that this emission reduction effect varies across industries with different levels of pollution intensity, and the power sector plays an important role in the “structural adjustment effect” among industries.

Based on the resource-based view, this paper attempts to analyze the impact of international related-party trade on the performance of foreign-funded enterprises in China from the perspective of value creation. The findings of this paper are as follows. (1) the greater the proportion of parent company to foreign-funded enterprises’ international related-party transactions, the better the performance of foreign-funded enterprises. (2) As the differences in legal systems increase, the role of international related-party trade in promoting performance is weakening. (3) As cultural differences increase, the role of international related-party trade in promoting performance is increasing. After considering the impact of transfer pricing, the conclusions of this paper remain unchanged.

Using the Chinese Agriculture Technology Demonstration Center (ATDC) in Africa as a quasi-natural experiment, we examine the causal impacts of China’s aid on crop production in Africa. The data pertain to African country-by-crop panel data from 2000 to 2018. Leveraging the triple difference-in-differences method, we find that the ATDC leads to increased crop production and improved trade dependence. The positive effects are more pronounced for free-standing technical support and ATDCs operated by state-owned enterprises. Lastly, the ATDC has profound implications for local agriculture and rural development.

Using the data of listed companies and the DID method, this paper reveals three ways in which green credit policy (GCP) affects corporate debt financing. By controlling credit input, GCP can effectively restrain corporate debt financing in the “two-high” industries. However, the policy also leads to the environmental performance effect and bank credit discrimination effect, as it strengthens the impact of environmental performance on corporate debt financing and weakens banks’ credit discrimination. Under the combined effect of the three ways, GCP has restrained the borrowing growth of state-owned enterprises, but has no significant impact on private firms.

This study investigates the spatial dynamics of intellectual property (IP) protection in China, a topic garnering significant attention both domestically and internationally amid the country's innovation-driven development and emphasis on IP strategies. Utilizing panel data from 284 prefecture-level cities from 2005 to 2021, the spatial Durbin model is employed to analyze the spatial correlation and determinants of IP protection. Findings reveal a notable positive spatial dependence and spillover effects of IP protection. The spatial dependence is more pronounced between geographically adjacent cities than those with close economic ties. Moreover, patent output and the presence of national IP demonstration cities significantly bolster IP protection levels, underscoring the importance of both quality and a balanced quantity of patents. The impact of these factors varies with regional and urban scale heterogeneity, with more pronounced effects in eastern and larger cities. This research underscores the positive spatial effects of IP protection and its role in enhancing regional innovation capabilities, fostering high-quality economic development, and supporting innovation-driven strategies, offering valuable theoretical and practical insights.

The Chinese government implemented the universal two-child policy on January 1, 2016 to arrest the decline in the nation's birthrate and address the challenge of a rapidly aging population. We find that this policy significantly increased the possibility of having children and this effect was not attenuated from 2016 to 2018. This policy can explain 14.8% of the average number of newborns in 2016–2018. Our back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the three-child policy implemented in 2021 will bring additional 283.2 thousand newborns each year.