This paper employs an economic approach to analyze the influence of Confucian filial piety on economic growth in ancient China. In the highly imperfect credit market of the time, filial piety, as a unique mechanism for fulfilling intergenerational contracts, could to some extent solve problems...

China reformed value-added tax (VAT) by removing investment from the tax base in northeastern provinces in 2004, which is a “natural experiment” of its tax system. Using difference-in-differences method, this paper for the first time investigates the impact of VAT reform on China firms'...

In power-oriented societies, academia may not be immune to the influence of power. This paper studies the power-publication link by applying an event-study strategy to a panel dataset of the publication and biographical information of deans of economics schools in Chinese universities. We find...

In power-oriented societies, academia may not be immune to the influence of power. This paper studies the power-publication link by applying an event-study strategy to a panel dataset of the publication and biographical information of deans of economics schools in Chinese universities. We find...

This paper extends the team production theory pioneered by Holmstrom (1982) with a team signaling model. In the model, the team's output acts as a signal of the team's ability, and thus is valuable for the team members. The team members will cooperate to some extent to signal a speci fic type,...

Using political mobility data for 189 leaders from China’s central state-owned enterprise (CSOEs) in 2008-2011, for the first time this paper investigates the mechanism of political turnover for leaders as quasi-government officers in CSOEs. We find that: (1) the likelihood of promotion of...

Empirical research has called for intensive use of disaggregated data. One of the most heavily used data set in studying the corporate behavior and performance in China is Chinese Industrial Enterprises Database. As we will show, this data set suffers from data matching problems as well as...

China’s coalmining fatalities were 140 times higher than the U.S. in the last decade. To shed light on this issue, we form and examinea unique panel dataset of 25,387 firm-year observations for China’s coalmining industry. We show that a firm’s leverage significantly determines its...

Empirical research has called for intensive use of disaggregated data. One of the most heavily used data set in studying the corporate behavior and performance in China is Chinese Industrial Enterprises Database. As we will show, this data set suffers from data matching problems as well as...