中国经济评论最新文献

The aim of this study is to examine whether digital finance affects residents' overall and mental health. Findings show that increasing digital finance is positively associated with residents' self-rated health and leads to a lower probability of feeling depressed for them. It is mainly driven by the larger positive health effect on low-socioeconomic residents or those in the eastern region. The possible channels through which digital finance plays a critical role in enhancing residents' health are also analyzed. Digital finance increases residents' consumption on health services, such as family fitness expenditure, raises their probability of purchasing commercial medical insurances, has a positive effect on their hours spent on physical exercises, and enhances their social interaction level, which may mediate the health effect of digital finance. These findings imply that digital finance development is not only an effective tool to stimulate economic growth, it also offers insight into the methods of enhancing individual health and narrowing health disparity among people.

Compared with command-and-control regulations, it is less known about the labor market consequences of environmental taxes. This study examines the employment impact of the 2018 Environmental Protection Tax (EPT). Applying a triple-difference framework, we empirically establish the employment-suppressing consequence of EPT, which is primarily attributable to output reductions and green technological advances. Moreover, our analysis highlights a size-dependent strategy adopted by companies to navigate the escalating environmental costs: while small companies opt for production downsizing, larger counterparts tend to invest more in technical abatement initiatives. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the unemployment effect is more pronounced in companies facing higher financial constraints and greater public environmental attention, with low-skilled workers bearing the brunt, albeit without significant wage inequality. Further, we find that government green subsidies can mute this job-reduction effect. Our study illuminates an unintended incidence of environmental policy costs on labor in China and underscores comprehensive policy evaluation.

This paper investigates the unexpected positive effect of the government-firm relationship on environmental governance in the context of the reform of official performance appraisal (OPA) in China. In 2013, the central government launched an OPA reform that aimed to reduce the dependence on GDP growth and increase the focus on environmental protection in the appraisal process. According to the empirical results, in cities with mayors who have promotion incentives, firms that received favor from local governments can significantly reduce air pollutant emissions after the OPA reform. These findings remain robust even after conducting various tests, such as parallel trend test, omitted variables, and alternative explanations. This paper demonstrates that a reciprocal relationship between governments and firms can benefit society with the appropriate incentives.

The role of contracting institutions, particularly the contract enforcement efficiency in shaping corporate vertical boundaries, has been largely overlooked. Using a quasi-natural experiment of the policy of “Announcement of Dishonest Persons” in China, we find that improved contract enforcement efficiency significantly promotes corporate vertical specialization, reflected in the improvement of corporate vertical specialization after the policy implementation. Reduction of transaction costs is the plausible mechanism. Moreover, the above impact is more pronounced when the exposure of firms to Laolai partners (i.e., the policy target), is higher. Finally, we find that efficient contract enforcement promotes total factor productivity through facilitating vertical specialization. This study identifies the causality between contracting institutions and corporate vertical specialization and extends research on consequences of the policy of “Announcement of Dishonest Persons”.

This paper examines the effect of uninsurable divorce risks on individuals' pre-marital homeownership by using an exogenous shift of the property division regime upon divorce from an equal-division regime to a title-based regime in China. This shift in 2011 aimed at protecting individuals' pre-marital assets, leading singles who worry about divorce risks to purchase a home prior to marriage. We find that singles' probability of owning a house prior to marriage increases by 3.2% in response to a one standard deviation increase in the divorce rate of their residing provinces. This effect is greater for female singles and singles above 30. Furthermore, the effect is stronger for singles with higher incomes, and singles living in the province with higher house prices. The empirical patterns are consistent with singles adopting pre-marital housing as a self-protection mechanism if they perceive great divorce risks after the regime shift in 2011. Our results provide important implications that housing serves not only as a durable consumption or an investment, but also as a self-protection mechanism against uninsurable divorce risks.

Nowadays, countries face unprecedented mutual distrust, making it difficult to establish and maintain positive international reputations and country image. Using data from the eighth round of Afrobarometer and the GDELT project, the paper examines how China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) affects its image in Africa. By using the multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) method, particular attention is paid to the perception of China's image among Africans as a result of the BRI. The study reveals several findings. Firstly, the BRI significantly improves China's image among Africans. Secondly, the BRI affects Africans' perceptions of China's image highly heterogeneously. In particular, women, the elderly, the unemployed, low-educated respondents, and those with limited media exposure suffer from more negative effects. Thirdly, the BRI enhances international opinion of China's image by increasing Chinese FDI, foreign aid, trade, and mutual cultural communications with Africa. Fourthly, in African countries, domestic mainstream public attention, and public praise and criticism can positively moderate the impact of the BRI on Africans' perceptions of China's image. These findings highlight the importance of economic cooperation and media portrayal in forming a country's image. The study emphasizes the necessity of reviewing the process and effectiveness of the BRI in Africa over the past decade. Additionally, it offers suggestions for both China and Africa to build a high-quality BRI, thus improving their bilateral economic cooperation.

This paper aims to examine whether property rights protection can enhance firm innovation. To address the endogeneity problem and establish a causal relationship, we adopt the establishment of Intellectual Property Tribunals (IP Tribunals) in China as a natural experiment and employ the Difference-in-Differences (DiD) approach for estimation. By measuring firm innovation via patents and invention patent applications, we find that establishing IP Tribunals can significantly boost firm innovation. Furthermore, we investigate the heterogeneity of our baseline results and discover that privately-owned firms, smaller-sized firms, non-high-tech firms, and firms located in less marketized areas experience a larger improvement in innovation. This finding suggests that this institutional improvement provides greater protection to disadvantaged firms. Breaking regional protectionism and relaxing firm financing constraints are two possible mechanisms through which IP Tribunals can enhance firm innovation. Our results provide new evidence on how institutional change affects economic growth in China.

We exploit a green lending mandate as a quasi-natural experiment and estimate its effect on labor investment inefficiency of firms with high carbon risk. We document that heightened climate regulatory risk through mandatory green lending requirements motivates firms with higher carbon risk to adjust their labor investments to levels supported by economic fundamentals. We especially show that climate regulatory risk lowers labor investment inefficiency by curbing overinvestment in labor. This impact is more concentrated among firms that are more dependent on banks for liquidity, firms with severe financial constraints, and those with more institutional investors. After the green credit policy, we also observe an increase in bank lending costs and a reduction in loan maturities for carbon-intensive firms. Overall, our findings suggest that climate bank lending regulation is one of the major channels through which climate risks get embedded in labor employment decisions. In particular, green lending regulatory costs can have significant effects on corporate labor investment efficiency.

Is water the wellspring of entrepreneurship? This study addresses this question by leveraging the exogenous shock associated with China's South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP), and employing a staggered difference-in-differences model to evaluate the impact of water resource reallocation on entrepreneurship. The results yield three notable findings. First, the SNWDP can significantly promote entrepreneurship in water-receiving regions, and this conclusion follows a series of robustness tests. Second, heterogeneity analyses of water transfer routes, regional water endowments, and industrial water dependence indicate that the recipient regions along the East Route exhibits greater entrepreneurial vitality compared to the Middle Route, and the SNWDP provides stronger incentives for entrepreneurship for water-scarce regions and high water-consuming industries. Third, the mechanism test reveals that the SNWDP optimizes the local entrepreneurial environment, which promotes entrepreneurship, primarily by reshaping water input, output, and labor supply advantages of the affected regions. This study yields significant policy implications for the continual optimization of water resource allocation, aimed at fostering high-quality employment.