中国经济评论最新文献

The carbon reduction effects of climate mitigation have received much attention, but less attention has been paid to the co-benefits of climate mitigation such as such as air pollution reduction and related health impacts. This oversight may have led to an underestimation of the broader welfare effects of climate mitigation and thus hindering its progress in implementation. This paper investigates the co-benefits of climate mitigation through focusing on the pollution reduction effects of the implementation of the clean development mechanism (CDM), which is an important climate mitigation mechanism to enhance north-south climate cooperation. Using a unique firm-level dataset with data on China's CDM projects from 1998 to 2012, we show that the CDM implementation reduced sulfur dioxide emissions. Mechanism analyses show that the CDM implementation alleviated firms' financing constraints and promoted fossil energy savings, thereby reducing emissions of air pollutants that usually coexist with greenhouse gases in burning fossil fuels. We also find that the CDM didn't bring about the expected technological progress. These results highlight environmental co-benefits of climate mitigation and provide important implications for international climate cooperation

This study evaluates the policy objectives and efficacy of government venture capital funds (GVCs) on the performance of invested entrepreneurial ventures. Analyzing data from China on GVCs, private venture capital funds (PVCs), and foreign venture capital funds (FVCs), it reveals that GVC-supported firms surpass those backed solely by domestic PVCs in R&D investment, return on assets (ROA), Tobin's Q, and corporate social responsibility metrics. Acting as government stewards, GVCs effectively fulfill policy goals. Moreover, GVC-backed ventures attract more venture capital following their lead and achieve higher one-day returns at IPOs compared to firms backed solely by private VC funds.

The long-standing debate on the role of economic factors and amenities on talent migration and redistribution foreshadows the importance of spatial economic theoretical thinking in resolving the effects of duality, a point yet to be conclusively addressed in the existing literature. Situated within the framework of new economic geography (NEG), this article introduces an innovative theoretical model – the Dual-Driver (DD) framework– aiming at comprehending the nuanced dual impact of economic and amenity factors on talent movements between regions. While the DD framework retains the mechanisms of increasing returns to scale, iceberg transportation cost, and talent agglomeration presented in the NEG models, it depicts, for the first time, the self-reinforcing mechanisms between non-traded goods (i.e., amenities) and talent agglomeration. The model describes a logic of talent movements influenced by the dual drivers of regional economic factors (nominal wage, the diversity of local manufacturing products) and amenities (the diversity and quality of amenities, transfer payment for talent), among which the economic effects play a predominant role versus the amenity effects. Empirical evidence has been given by the geographical analysis of China's internal talent migration between 2000 and 2015 and the corresponding econometric analysis using the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) estimation. Our findings furnish a theoretical perspective for comprehending talent geography and offer policy insights into China's logic of talent migration.

The outbreak of COVID-19 forced people to change their lifestyles. In this study, a questionnaire was administered to 1000 Chinese residents to investigate the effects of risk preferences based on prospect theory from behavioral economics, trust in a trust game, other people's expectations, and personal attributes on the adherence to quarantine measures during a pandemic.

Factor analysis divided the preventive behaviors into (1) compliance for self-health care, (2) compliance for going outside, and (3) compliance for staying home alone. In Category 1, those who were more sensitive to gains than losses were more likely to have a health code, wash their hands longer, report instances of COVID-19, and disinfect often. In Category 2, they avoided volunteering at large hospitals, avoided trips to see acquaintances, avoided public walks, avoided meeting strangers, avoided going to garden centers, and wore masks when out and about. On the other hand, those more sensitive to 'losses' than 'gains' were found to work from home and socialize with non-family members in Category 3.

Based on prospect theory, it was found that whether one values gains or losses has a strong influence on preventative behavior. In particular, the fact that those who place greater value on gains than on losses tend to be more proactive in preventative behavior is expected to shed new light on future government guidance for citizens and subtle nudges or prompts to influence behavior.

Environmental degradation, especially air pollution, has been a prevalent problem in China in recent decades. Rather than focus on traditional regulatory policies aimed at enterprises engaged in production activities, this paper studies the effects of the clean heating policy targeting residents in China. Taking the coal-to-gas program as a quasi-natural experiment and using a city-level dataset of daily air quality, we study the effects of the clean heating policy implemented in Beijing and its surrounding areas on air quality with the difference-in-differences method. The results show that the clean heating policy significantly reduced air pollution in coal-to-gas cities, bringing improved economic welfare, with stronger effects in Beijing's neighboring cities. We find no evidence suggesting a decreasing policy effect over time. In addition, we find that increasing subsidies can further enhance the policy's effectiveness. We also test the spatial spillover effects of this policy and calculate its geographical boundary. Changing the energy structure in conjunction with regulating residential emissions is crucial to improving air quality.

“Poverty is the mother of crime”, but existing literature has not yet analyzed the effect of local poverty on crimes in other jurisdictions. Based on 1992–2012 provincial data from China, this paper examines the transborder effects of poverty on crimes, by estimating spatial econometric models. Poverty is found to not only increase local crime, but also raise crime rates in other provinces. This spillover effect is more pronounced between provinces with close geographical proximity, high labor mobility and high dialect similarity. In addition, we compare the effects of increased police spending versus Dibao on poverty-related local and transborder crimes, finding that both can reduce poverty-related local crimes, but only Dibao can reduce poverty-related transborder crimes. The main policy implications of this paper are twofold. First, poverty alleviation can address both the symptoms and the root causes of local and external crimes, with broader and lasting effects than raising police spending. Thus, cross-border resource transfers shall target poverty alleviation; Second, poverty alleviation is not only a concern of the poor areas, but also a challenge for relatively developed areas in terms of crime governance.

Understanding how carbon dioxide (CO₂) fertilizes crop yields is crucial for assessing potential threats to food security in a changing climate, characterized by evolving atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. Utilizing an instrumental variable based on the long-distance transmission of CO₂ from upwind counties, we investigate the causal effects of CO₂ on crop yields. Our findings provide evidence that a one-standard-deviation increase in CO₂ leads to significant increases in rice, wheat, and corn yields, with effect sizes of 0.3066, 0.7313, and 0.1398 standard deviations, respectively. Moreover, our research provides evidence indicating that the carbon fertilization effects shape the agricultural landscape in China by influencing the acreage shifts across crops. Projecting future crop productions based on a scenario of carbon neutrality aligned with the Paris Agreement, we anticipate that total crop production in China will reach its peak in 2041, followed by a gradual decline. Temperatures will largely offset the predicted changes in crop output brought on by CO₂, and the predicted CO₂-induced crop production will change accordingly when taking acreage shifts into account.

In China, the relative wages of high-skilled and low-skilled workers display huge variation across different regions. We examine whether financial intermediation development (FID) can explain such variation. Conceptually, better-developed financial intermediation helps financially-constrained firms raise new capital, which is usually skill-biased, resulting in an increased demand for skilled labor and skill premium. Using a cross-section of workers from the 1% Population Survey of 2005, we find consistent evidence; besides, the relationship is stronger among workers in industries with higher capital-skill complementarity and in non-state-owned enterprises. Overall, our results suggest that the financial market plays a role in explaining skill premium in China.

In this paper, we rely on an exogenous shock to examine the impact of bankruptcy judicial reform on firms' trade credit financing. We employ a staggered difference-in-differences design based on the introduction of bankruptcy courts in China and find that the implementation of bankruptcy judicial reform significantly reduces firms' trade credit financing. Mechanism tests reveal that improved judicial efficiency increases the risk perception of local firms, which discourages trade credit financing. Heterogeneity tests show that the above effect is more pronounced in firms with higher bankruptcy risks, firms with state ownership, and in regions where bankruptcy administrators have been established. Conversely, higher supplier concentration attenuates the inhibitory effect of bankruptcy judicial reform. Further analyses show that the reform mainly reduces firms' trade credit provided by customers and the trade credit with financial attributes. In addition, the reform lowers the sales of firms' suppliers but does not affect their earnings performance, while customers benefit from the reform as their earnings increase while sales do not change significantly. The findings of this paper shed light on the impact of bankruptcy judicial efficiency on corporate financing structure, and provide policy implications for promoting the construction of China's bankruptcy rule of law and preventing financial risks.

This study explores the persistence and transformation of culture amidst a critical economic process in China today, known as urbanization. Based on the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS), we find that the clan, a central mechanism used to sustain cooperation in China's rural society, continues to impact trust traits amidst the ongoing urbanization process. Respondents from regions with a history of high clan density report higher levels of limited trust toward families, lower levels of generalized trust toward strangers, and a significant trust gap between these two. Nevertheless, the urbanization process is gradually mitigating the effect of clans on trust traits by driving the population from villages, providing public services to citizens, and promoting cooperation among strangers.