Journal of Asian Economics最新文献

The rapidly growing empirical studies find that reallocating physical and financial input across and within firms can be an essential productivity growth source. This paper examines the process of credit reallocation across Indian businesses by applying the methodology proposed by Davis & Haltiwanger (1992) for measuring job reallocation. Using the unique firm-level dataset for over 30 years, we find that substantial gross credit flows are masked by underlying net credit growth at any business cycle phase. Our results reveal that credit reallocation is intense, and the majority of credit reallocation occurs within a group of firms similar in size, governance, or industry. We also find that credit destruction is more volatile than credit creation, and excess reallocation fluctuates countercyclically over the business cycle. The findings suggest that heterogeneity in credit market dynamics is a prime source of credit reallocation evolution.

The uneven development of China can be reflected by the mismatch of labor and industry distributions (MLIS) in terms of spatial structure. Industries usually agglomerate in large cities where a strict household registration system causing high barriers with respect to population and labor entry. Infrastructures that reduce the cost of labor and technology mobility, as represented by high-speed rail (HSR), are possible improvement to regulate such distortions as the two agglomerated into opposite directions. This paper focuses on the impact of HSR on MLIS using a large panel dataset comprising 285 Chinese cities in 2000–2019. A difference-in-difference analysis is introduced to carried out empirical analyses. This paper finds that HSR can significantly mitigate the MLIS in prefecture level cities, but not in cities above prefecture level. The heterogeneous effects of HSR are then discussed with respect to industries and MLIS types. Further mechanism tests show that HSR’s mitigating effect on MLIS comes from the employment effect and the innovation effect. Finally, policy recommendations are provided on HSR investment to improve China's uneven development from the perspective of synergy labor and industry distributions.

In this study, we provide a new explanation for the position in global value chain (GVC)—the impact of financial development—and explore the mechanism from the perspective of research and development (R&D) intensity. Based on GVC and financial development theories, we construct a general equilibrium model and find that financial development promotes product quality by increasing a company’s R&D investment intensity, thus affecting the position in global value chain. The theoretical analysis is supported by empirical evidence based on a panel data from 32 countries between 1995 and 2018. Considering that many developing countries are still trapped in the position with low value added in GVC, our findings provide an important solution—launching financial reforms such as developing direct financing, improving financial market flexibility, and enhancing operational efficiency in the market.

The rapid development of information and communication technologies has brought about a marked change in work patterns, with teleworking emerging as a vital and complementary form of employment. The COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 led to widespread social isolation, accelerating the adoption of teleworking. Following Dingel and Neiman (2020), we construct a teleworkability index for over 4539 employees and analyze the dynamic changes in their working status in China. Our findings suggest that business and technical workers are more likely to work remotely than essential labor workers. Highly educated female workers who live in the southeast of China show the advantage of working from home. Further regression estimation indicates that, throughout 2020, workers with a higher teleworkability index can better cope with adverse shocks from the pandemic with higher return-to-work rates and higher productivity. In contrast, those with a lower teleworkability index face challenges in job retention and suffer from higher unemployment rates and severe income losses. In addition, the teleworkability index is positively associated with mental health status. This study highlights the most vulnerable segment in the labor market, those with low teleworkability, should be well targeted by the social security system.

The fiscal policy’s impact on the price level is theorized as the Fiscal Theory of Price Level (FTPL) and has been popularized since the 1980 s. Developing countries often face the problem of prolonged deficits in fiscal management and depend on public debt. Studies on the FTPL in these countries are pertinent but scarce. This paper explores the price level trajectory in the Indian economy for 1985–2019 on the premise of FTPL. Empirical assessment involves both fiscal variables (deficit, debt, public spending) and money supply. The results of the cointegrated vector autoregression model followed by an impulse response analysis reveal that fiscal deficit stimulates the price level, while public spending has a stabilizing impact. Public debt is rather inflationary, but its impact is not robust. Besides, the money supply amplifies the price level. In the price level trajectory, neither the fiscal dominance nor the monetary dominance, that is, indeterminacy, is ascertained. The proactive role of fiscal and monetary policies in the price level trajectory suggests that if the Reserve Bank of India’s stance on price-level stabilization is abreast, the fiscal authority might accomplish the appropriate strategy.

This paper replicates Kehrig and Vincent (2021) using Japanese data and tests whether the overall labor share decline is led by an increase in low-labor-share firms. The results can be summarized as follows. First, although the labor share of median firms did not rise while the overall labor share was declining, the rate of decline in the labor share of the median firm was slower than the overall rate of decline. Second, the value-added share of firms with a low labor share increased while their salary share did not increase when the overall labor share declined. Third, entry and exit are not important to the decline in overall labor share, as in the United States. Fourth, the role of firms with an extremely low labor share, say under decile, which is a good explanation of the change in labor share in the United States, is limited in Japan. Fifth, the change in actual labor share is very similar to $\sum {\omega }_{i,initial}{\lambda }_{it}$, the product of the initial value-added share and labor share at the time. Sixth, firms that increased their value-added share tended to decrease their labor share.

Using the Slack Based Measure model and the globally referenced Malmquist-Luenberger index, the green total factor productivity at the enterprise level is calculated from 2002 to 2013 in this paper. Based on this, the fixed effects model, system Generalized Method of Moments, and instrumental variable method are used to examine the impact of export trade on green transformation of enterprises from two perspectives: export density and export domestic value-added rate. The results show that the increased export density and export domestic value-added rate have greatly promoted the green development of enterprises. The internal mechanism is mainly reflected in the domestic market competition channels, management channels and terminal treatment channels. Heterogeneity analysis finds that the increase in export density has a significant promoting effect on the green transformation of coastal enterprises, enterprises engaged in general trade and comprehensive trade. The green effect of increasing the domestic value-added rate of exports on private enterprises and enterprises engaged in comprehensive trade is particularly evident. Both have a strong effect on improving green total factor productivity for enterprises established less than 40 years ago. The research conclusions provide important theoretical support for the coordinated and effective promotion of the development of open economy and green transformation.

This paper uses a unique firm-level data set from China’s two most developed regions, the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and the Pearl River Delta (PRD), to examine the effects of environmental regulations on innovation. Variations in air and water pollution reduction plans under the Total Emissions Control Policy from the 10th to the 12th Five-Year Plans (2001–2015) are explored to measure the stringency of environmental regulations faced by industrial firms. To alleviate endogeneity concerns, we calculate city-level fair pollution reduction volumes which rely only on each city’s contribution to national pollution emissions in the base years and use them as instrumental variables of reduction plans. The two-stage least square estimations reveal that while air pollution regulation (APR) motivates industrial firms to innovate, water pollution regulation (WPR) hinders firm innovation. We confirm the opposite effects by estimating the impact on entrepreneurs’ perceptions of the importance of innovation in industrial firms’ development. Heterogeneity effect analysis shows that APR also hinders innovation in heavily air-polluting industries and state-owned firms, and WPR produces a decreasing innovation-hindering effect over time, which is larger in the YRD region than in the PRD region. We interpret the opposite impacts with the fact that water pollution discharges are more equally distributed across industries than air pollution emissions, resulting in more pervasive and stringent WPR.

Despite the crucial role of fathers’ parenting activities in early child development and the increasing global attention to fathers’ parenting behaviors, these is a paucity of knowledge regarding paternal parenting in rural China. Using a rich dataset of 1145 infants from rural China, we described the prevalent paternal parenting behaviors in the sample area and explored the correlations between fathers’ parenting behaviors and children’s cognitive outcome and socio-emotional development. To assess children’s cognitive development, we utilized various scales based on their development stages: the Bayley Scales of Infant Development-Third Edition (BSID-III) for ages 6–24 months and the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Fourth Edition (WPPSI-IV) for ages 52–85 months. Our overall findings revealed positive correlations between paternal behaviors and developmental outcomes of sampled children, including cognitive skills and social-emotional development. Fathers’ parenting behaviors in rural China are insufficient and need to be improved. Specifically, less than a quarter of fathers reported engaging in activities such as telling stories using picture books, singing songs, or playing with toys with their children in the past three days. Based on our findings, we recommend that local government provide additional parenting instructions to heighten fathers’ awareness and participation in parenting activities, especially in rural low-income areas. Additionally, creating more employment opportunities in their hometowns for fathers with young children could substantially benefit these children.

Over the past decade, many developing nations have adopted inflation targeting within their monetary policy strategy, with varied approaches to exchange rate flexibility. This paper investigates if monetary policies in economies with high trade openness should integrate exchange rate movements in setting interest rates. Conventional micro-founded models suggest limited benefits from including exchange rates in policy rules. However, using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium framework focused on Thailand, a small open economy with high trade openness, we find that responding to exchange rate changes with policy rates enhances welfare, more so than disregarding these fluctuations. Additionally, we observe that increased trade openness leads to a flattening of the Phillips curve and hence requires a stronger policy response to deviations from the inflation target. Our findings highlight the critical role of considering exchange rate movements and the degree of trade openness in formulating monetary policies.