Journal of Asian Economics最新文献

As enterprises transition from traditional growth models to modern ones, the roles of the market and government are pivotal in facilitating this transformation. Based on the Chinese experience, this paper employs textual analysis methods to describe the transformation process from old to new growth drivers in enterprises and to identify the distinct influences of governmental and market forces. Empirical evidence demonstrates that effective government incentives and competitive market pressure both contribute significantly to development upgrades. A clear symbiotic relationship is evident between these two forces, with government intervention enhancing the effectiveness of market dynamics. However, the impact of these forces varies across different enterprises. The empirical findings suggest that by harnessing the efficient synergy between the "visible hand" of government intervention and the "invisible hand" of market forces, development modes can be upgraded, and endogenous growth can be more effectively fostered.

Farmland mortgage financing policy has been actively carried out and intertwined with mass entrepreneurship strategy in China in recent years. Using survey data of 1947 rural households in pilot counties of farmland mortgage loans (FMLs), we contribute to the literature by examining the impact of financial literacy on rural households’ entrepreneurship with considering the heterogeneity between agricultural and non-agricultural entrepreneurship and exploring how financial literacy affects entrepreneurship through FMLs. The results show that financial literacy has a significant and positive impact on both rural households’ agricultural and non-agricultural entrepreneurship. Moreover, households with higher level of financial literacy show a higher probability in the application for and approval of more FMLs. This study provides strong evidence that the impact of financial literacy on farm households’ agricultural entrepreneurship is partially mediated by FMLs, while that impact on their non-agricultural entrepreneurship is partially suppressed by FMLs. We further find that financial literacy can also increase rural households’ entrepreneurial income through their approval of FMLs. These findings suggest that systematical financial literacy training programs are needed to popularize FML products and services and facilitate rural households’ entrepreneurship.

The outbreaks of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and subsequent lockdowns and school closures have caused varying degrees of academic disruptions for children. This paper exploits variation in the duration that cities were classified as medium- or high-risk areas to identify the effects of China’s zero-COVID policy on the academic outcomes of children aged 6 to 15. Employing a difference-in-differences methodology and focusing on within-student changes in academic performance between the pre- and early stages of the pandemic, we uncover robust evidence that the stringency of the zero-COVID policy is associated with significantly better mathematics performance for boys, while having no effects on girls. Mechanism analyses show that parental discipline is crucial for children’s academic performance during COVID-19. Boys benefit more from parental discipline than girls, especially those with weaker noncognitive skills. In particular, a conscientious mother, coupled with an amiable father, seems to bring about the best outcomes for the child. Importantly, our findings go beyond the confines of the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing the general impact of family dynamics on children’s educational resilience in the face of unforeseen challenges.

The role of peer effects in children's human capital accumulation has attracted increased amounts of attention. Using data from a nationally representative survey of Chinese middle school students, this paper exploits random student-classroom assignment as a quasi-natural experiment to identify the peer effects of local students on the human capital of migrant children in Chinese middle schools. The results indicate that the peer effects of local students significantly improve the human capital of migrant children, including academic performance, cognitive abilities and non-cognitive abilities. Moreover, these peer effects can be further explained by improved parent-child relationships and parental expectations, increased student effort and expectations, and optimized teachers' teaching and school climate. Additionally, the peer effects from local students varies with migrant children's gender, Hukou, number of siblings and grade. Our research contributes to complementing the research field regarding peer effects and provides a new policy-oriented direction for the development of migrant children's human capital.

We investigated how regulating political connections affects firms’ employee welfare attitudes using a quasi-natural experiment in China. We find that the depoliticization regulation negatively impacts employee welfare attitudes toward firm staff benefits, but positively impact welfare attitudes toward firm humanistic care. Furthermore, we find that the SOEs’ employee welfare attitude regarding staff benefits is profoundly reduced; the effect of regulating political connections on welfare attitudes toward firms’ humanistic care is particularly effective for non-SOEs. Additionally, the impact of regulating political connections on employees’ welfare attitudes is particularly profound for firms in the manufacturing sector. Moreover, our empirical results indicate that the impact of regulating political connections on employee welfare attitudes is significant, particularly for firms experiencing financial constraints. Firms located in neither left- nor right-leaning regions seem to form the most affected group. Finally, the weakening of firms’ political connections has resulted in a decline of corporate wage differentials.

Rural industrial integration serves as an effective strategy to promote farmers' wealth, income, and overall rural revitalization. Drawing on the theories of national accounting and transaction costs, this study formulates a mechanism for how rural industrial integration increases farmers' income. It achieves this by increasing the value added of products, increasing short-term agricultural output, and reducing transaction costs. The research focuses on agricultural counties and districts in Liaoning and Shanxi provinces, and constructs a rural industrial integration index using the Herfindahl coefficient. The empirical analysis uses the PVAR model to test the relationship between the development of rural industrial integration and farmers' income. The results show that: the integration of primary and tertiary industries has a positive effect on the growth of farmers' income, while the integration of secondary and tertiary industries has only promoted the growth of farmers' income in Liaoning Province. Different integration models have different effects on the growth of farmers' income. Farmers' income significantly influences the development of rural industrial integration, but its effects vary across regions. Based on these findings, policy recommendations include tailoring strategies based on local resources and asset conditions, promoting vertical and horizontal integration of industrial chains, strengthening financial support, and encouraging the participation of new enterprises. The ultimate goal is to achieve comprehensive development of rural industries and increase farmers' incomes.

This study considers the impact of broadband infrastructure construction on household inequality of opportunity. Based on the "circumstance-effort" framework, we estimate the inequality of opportunity index, and we utilize China's household survey data. To identify this effect, we consider the construction of "Broadband China" demonstration cities, and we apply the difference-in-differences method; thus, we observe that broadband infrastructure can promote the equality of opportunity, and with respect to a series of robustness tests (e.g., parallel trend tests and instrumental variable estimation), the conclusion is robust. Furthermore, we observed that by increasing the intergenerational mobility of education for individuals with lower parental education background and by narrowing the gender wage gap, the deployment of broadband infrastructure reduces the opportunity inequality that is occasioned by parental education background and gender.

China's low-income population is primarily mad up of farmers. Elevating their earnings is the key to realizing common prosperity. Based on the quasi-natural experiment of the "Broadband China" strategy, we applied the staggered double difference method to explore the impact of Internet use on the income of Chinese rural households. The findings indicate that Internet use can enhance the business income of rural households, whereas it does not have such significantly positive effects on other income. After mitigating endogeneity issues, the basic pattern of the effects remains. The heterogeneity analysis reveals that females and individuals with higher levels of education benefit more from the "Broadband China" policy. The mechanism results show that Income boosting effect may arise from improving rural entrepreneurship behavior.

This study examines the impact of the educational level of grassroots leaders on the vulnerability to poverty among villagers in China, using panel data from the National Fixed-Point Survey (NFS) from 2003 to 2015. Our findings indicate that a higher proportion of village cadres with a high school education or above significantly reduces the vulnerability to poverty among rural households in China. We identify two main mechanisms underlying this effect: (1) highly educated village cadres possess greater capabilities in assisting eligible poor households to understand and access government assistance programs, thereby increasing household transfer incomes; and (2) highly educated village cadres can alleviate household vulnerability to poverty by promoting local infrastructure development in the village. These results offer an alternative perspective on targeted poverty alleviation, suggesting that efforts should be directed toward enhancing the human capital level of local grassroots leaders or appointing highly educated leaders in underdeveloped villages.

This research explores how renewable energy investment and financial development affect climate change using panel data of 26 OECD countries and 18 non-OECD countries from 1996 to 2019. Several conclusions are drawn from empirical analysis. First, there exist cointegration relationships among renewable energy investment, financial development, and climate change. Second, the effects of renewable energy investment and financial development on climate change exhibit heterogeneity. In the full sample and for OECD countries, renewable energy investment and financial development have a negative impact on climate change, while for non-OECD countries, renewable energy investment has a positive impact on climate change.