We use the establishment of Special Economic Zones in China to estimate the effect of economic reforms on GDP. A panel of 270 Chinese cities from 1988 to 2010 allows us to exploit the variation in the establishment of zones across time and space. The results from our baseline fixed effects...

The number of discouraged workers is small relative to the rest of the working-age population, and most discouraged workers do not stay in that category too long.

We estimate the effect on economic development of China's industrial policy, in particular, the establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZ). We use data from a panel of 276 Chinese cities and prefectures from 1988 to 2010. Our difference-in-difference estimator exploits the variation in the...

We use the establishment of Special Economic Zones in China to estimate the effect of economic reforms on GDP. A panel of 270 Chinese cities from 1988 to 2010 allows us to exploit the variation in the establishment of zones across time and space. The results from our baseline...

The process of economic reforms launched in 1978, and gradually extended until current days, has catapulted China into a stellar growth trajectory that has proven highly resilient. In this paper, we estimate the effect on economic development of China’s industrial policy, in particular, the...

The decline in U.S. trade during the Great Recession was worse than during previous recessions. But the difference was not merely due to the severity of the U.S. recession.

We construct a new measure of the unemployment rate based on a plausible assumption that some, but not all, of the discouraged workers reenter the labor force.