Journal of Asian Economics最新文献

The traditional view is that China is a strong son preference country, and some empirical studies support such view. We argue that demand for children, including sex of children, and family size, is the outcome of economic decisions in which social and economic factors could interact with gender preference. Thus, it is possible that strong social and economic factors counteract the strong son preference and lead to daughter preference. To investigate this possibility, we propose an indirect utility function approach and apply it to a recent Chinese data set. We find strong evidence on preference reversal as incomes and child rearing costs rise substantially for Chinese urban parents. Given that China is now a middle-income country and child rearing costs have skyrocketed during the last four decades, we find that Chinese parents with one child have little interest in rushing to have a second child. This does not bode well for the Chinese government’s programs to improve demographics.

This paper introduces a novel framework for analyzing the performance of cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) activities in international business. It investigates whether the contraction of overseas market activities can mitigate financial crises, using the case study of a Chinese multinational enterprise (MNE). Traditional event study methodology, commonly used for assessing business performance changes, relies on assumptions of normality and homoscedasticity in data. However, real financial data often exhibits high volatility and non-normal distribution, rendering traditional methods inadequate for estimation. To address this limitation, we propose an enhanced analytical framework integrating the Shapiro–Wilk test, event studies, quantile regression, and nonparametric rank tests. This approach provides more robust estimates, facilitating a more accurate and comprehensive analysis of business performance changes under specific events. Applying this methodology to assess the short-term performance of HNA Group, a cross-border airline in China, during its financial crisis, we find that while overseas market contraction events generate overall positive short-term value for enterprises, the impact varies depending on the assets sold. However, given HNA Group's substantial debt burden, the positive effect is minimal, indicating that overseas market contraction alone is insufficient as a "self-help" strategy in addressing corporate financial crises.

Using regional panel data from Korea, this paper investigates the differential impact of monetary policy on output, consumption, and employment by region. Depending upon distinctive regional characteristics, the effects of monetary policy are heterogeneous across regions. Specifically, regions with a lower share of manufacturing, a lower income level, a higher proportion of the elderly population, and a higher household debt ratio exhibit more pronounced responses in output, consumption, and employment to monetary policy shocks. Further, we show that the share of net exports, the share of small businesses, and the share of non-wage workers are pivotal factors that drive the primary results. These findings imply that vulnerable regions may experience a stronger impact from recent rapid interest rate hikes, underscoring the importance of supplementary fiscal support for the regions.

Income inequality has moderated in the Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam, three middle income countries in Southeast Asia, over the past two decades, with multiple factors at play. In each country, wage, nonfarm business income, and overseas remittance concentrations declined as less well-off households increasingly engaged in better-paying activities. In Thailand and Viet Nam, transfer incomes became more pro-poor and better targeted. Major contributors to lower income inequality also included a narrowing in regional disparity and a reduction in the urban-rural income gap, and, in the Philippines and Thailand, a fall in the education premium. This recent trend of moderating income inequality might be the combined outcome of rising income opportunities generated by structural transformation and government policies promoting social inclusion. Nonetheless, income inequality remains high, especially in the Philippines and Thailand. More policy efforts are needed to make growth more inclusive.

This study uses a multi-period DID (difference-in-difference) model and data from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2019 to analyse the relationship between capital market opening and insider trading profitability. We find that capital market opening can significantly inhibit insider trading profitability. This relationship remains substantially unchanged after a series of robustness tests. Enhancing stock pricing efficiency and corporate governance are two plausible mechanisms through which capital market opening reduces insider trading profitability. A cross-sectional analysis finds that the mitigating role of the capital market opening is more pronounced in bull stock markets, and in firms with higher price sensitivity and investor attention. Overall, these results enrich the literature on capital market opening and provide new insights into its effects on emerging markets.

We investigate the impact of macroprudential regulations on systemic risk in Chinese banks. Applying the approach of unconditional quantile regressions to a panel dataset of major Chinese banks from 2002 to 2018, we find supportive evidence for non-linear impacts of macroprudential regulations in mitigating the systemic risk of banks. Specifically, the risk-reducing effects of macroprudential regulations increase with the distributional quantiles of bank systemic risk, implying that macroprudential regulations may be implemented more rigorously on banks with a greater potential to influence systemic stability.

Based on the nationally representative panel data collected in 2000 households in 100 villages of 5 provinces in 2016 and 2019, this study analyzed the impact and potential paths of different types of agricultural socialization services (labor-intensive, technology-intensive, marketing) on farmland rented-in from the perspectives of accessibility and diversity of suppliers. The consistent results yielded from OLS, fixed effect model, and instrumental variable method showed that labor-intensive services had positive and significant effects on the probability and size of renting in farmland and it was much larger for the households without off-farm employment or with rich farmland endowment. However, neither technology-intensive nor marketing services had such effects . The substitution effect of different type of services on labor force, the attributes of service providers, and the characteristics of service buyers contributed to the difference. These findings imply that the government should pay more attention to the development of technology-intensive and marketing services, especially for smallholders, while keeping to encourage and support various suppliers to provide labor-intensive services.

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.