Journal of Asian Economics最新文献

This paper uses panel local projection methodology to analyze Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) and employment responses to external shocks, including US monetary policy, oil price, and geopolitical risk shocks. Our main findings are that the effects of US monetary policy and oil price shocks manifest with a lag of one to two years, while the impact of geopolitical risk shocks is estimated to occur immediately and dissipate rapidly. The factors behind heterogeneity in regional economic responses to external shocks were identified as income levels, industrial and demographic structures, household indebtedness, and global integration. These findings suggest that external shocks can exert heterogeneous effects depending on the nature of each region, primarily influenced by their industrial structure and economic vulnerability.

The paper models the effect of distortion in factor markets on corporate innovation in a developing country, where the factor markets are underdeveloped in contrast to product markets. The distortion between factor markets and product markets has deteriorated the capability of firms to obtain profits, thereby dampening the incentives of firms to invest in innovation. Using a detailed firm-level dataset with manufacturing corporate innovation activities from 2008 to 2014, we testify to the prediction from the theoretical models that distortion depresses corporate R&D investment as well as R&D per capita. We strengthen our results using an IV approach to address reverse causality. Overall, our results have shed light on an emerging literature on distortion and innovation.

Green technology acquisition solves the mismatch of innovation elements through transactions and realizes the rapid and reasonable allocation of green patents among enterprises with different technology levels. However, whether green technology acquisition can effectively reduce carbon emissions has not yet received the attention it deserves. Based on data of 153 Chinese cities from 2011 to 2019, this paper explores the impact direction and mechanism of green technology acquisition on non-residential CO2 emissions, and analyzes the moderating role of government actions in this process. The study finds that: (1) Green technology acquisition in China has formed a multi-core spatial distribution pattern based on urban agglomerations, among which the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Pearl River Delta urban agglomerations constitute the main agglomeration areas for green technology acquisition. (2) Green technology acquisition can significantly reduce non-residential CO2 emissions, which is mainly achieved through the cleaner production effect and R&D innovation effect. (3) In terms of government actions, low-carbon advocacy can effectively moderate the mediating role of the cleaner production effect between green technology acquisition and non-residential CO2 emissions, and environmental incentives and environmental penalties can effectively moderate the mediating role of the R&D innovation effect between green technology acquisition and non-residential CO2 emissions, but the moderating paths are different. (4) There is a threshold effect of intellectual property protection in the impact of green technology acquisition on non-residential CO2 emissions. Only when the degree of intellectual property protection exceeds a certain threshold, green technology acquisition can effectively reduce non-residential CO2 emissions. This paper not only explains the key value of green technology for low-carbon development from the perspective of knowledge flow, but also provides a theoretical reference for the rational matching of government actions under the carbon neutrality target.

This paper explores the linkages between urban form and productivity in Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2000 to 2019. While most of the literature has concentrated on the effects of population density, this paper calculates the distance between each raster pair within the city's largest continuous built-up area to capture the urban form variation by using the matched data of the European Space Agency Global Land Cover dataset and the Chinese administrative map. For the empirical evidence, we apply the instrumental variables strategy for dealing with the endogeneity between urban form and productivity. We find that urban form deterioration has a statistically significant negative effect on the city's total factor productivity, and the results are still robust with a series of robustness checks. Furthermore, according to the mechanism test, we find that urban form deterioration affects the city's economic performance by discouraging the aggregation of enterprises and population in the city. This study thus sheds new light on the adoption of urban expansion policies to solve the negative externality of urban form deterioration on economic performance in China.

This paper empirically investigates the impact of the property tax on housing wealth inequality using the property tax pilot program in China as a quasi-natural experiment. Our findings uncover a significant decrease in the Gini coefficients of the housing wealth in the pilot cities. The main channels at work include evolutionary housing demand from home buyers and the convergence of housing prices for different sizes. Two typical tax-exemption scenarios, based on per capita housing area or total number of housing units, present significant differences in the magnitude of the policy effectiveness as well as the effective channels.

The South Asian region has a wide range of problems that significantly influence its path towards environmental sustainability. The region's rapid population expansion, rising urbanization rates, rising industry, and increasing resource demands primarily determine these challenges. The quest for environmental sustainability in this setting is complex and multidimensional, made more difficult by the shadow economy, corruption, and the need to improve renewable energy alternatives. Therefore, the current study examines the multifaceted and interrelated dynamics of the shadow economy, corruption, economic inequality, and environmental sustainability in South Asian nations from 2004 to 2018. We have used sophisticated methodological strategies to tackle cross-section dependence, non-stationarity, and heterogeneity issues by employing a pooled mean group (PMG). However, we use panel FMOLS and DOLS techniques for robustness checks. The findings of the PMG analysis show that the shadow economy, corruption, and industrialization significantly negatively impact environmental sustainability. On the other hand, renewable energy consumption and urbanization are positive and substantial elements that lead to improved environmental sustainability. The robust procedures applied to check the consistency of the estimators also confirmed the long-run relationship among variables. Research findings suggest that reinforcing legal frameworks for environmental rules is crucial for adherence. Incentives such as legal protection and financial rewards can encourage environmental responsibility among businesses, reducing shadow economy operations and risks. Promoting renewable energy resources and urbanization helps to support a sustainable green economy.

This paper considers the demonetisation event of November 2016 in India and its impact on labour force participation and incomes with a view to understand the role of governance in how individuals weathered the shock. We measure governance at the state level by measuring if the state was ruled by Bhartiya Janta Party at the time of demonetisation which was also the ruling party in the centre under whom demonetisation was introduced. We use a difference in difference approach to compare outcomes before and after demonetisation for individuals in politically aligned states. We control for financial inclusion by the banking penetration at the state level and whether individuals had a bank account. We find evidence of a gendered impact of the macroeconomic shock of demonetisation. While we find that demonetisation is associated with an overall drop in labour force participation, we find that individuals residing in BJP ruled states fared relatively better and this was particularly true for females. We find that while incomes continued to rise post demonetisation, individuals residing in BJP ruled states had relatively better outcomes. We additionally controlled for states which were up for election in 2017 and find that individuals in states which were BJP ruled and up for reelections showed better employment and income outcomes.

In this paper, the effects of entering the labor market during the Asian financial crisis on the labor market outcomes for vocationally oriented college and academically oriented college graduates were analyzed. Using panel data on South Korea, it was found that adverse economic shock significantly affects the labor market outcomes for academically oriented college graduates after graduation. Specifically, male graduates from academically oriented colleges experienced severe and persistent wage and employment losses. Vocationally oriented college graduates did not experience significant employment or wage problems during the recession. Finally, graduates from prestigious colleges can offset their wage loss due to adverse economic shock through the wage premia of college prestige. College prestige can alleviate the negative effects of the recession on graduates’ wages. The findings suggest that graduates during a recession, depending on their college type, experience different paths of labor market outcomes in the years after their college graduation.

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.