Using a unique setting in China, where the geographic distance between Collective firms and local governments is highly persistent due to legal restrictions on land ownership and mobility, we investigate the role of government involvement in small firms. In the analysis of survey responses, we...

Models of political risk predict that increases in political uncertainty cause stock prices to fall, especially for politically sensitive firms. We use the event of the Bo Xilai political scandal in 2012 in China as an exogenous shock to identify the impact of political uncertainty on asset...

An emerging literature estimates air pollution's effects on productivity but only for small groups of workers of particular occupations or firms. To provide more comprehensive estimates necessary for nationwide policy analysis, we estimate effects for a nationally representative sample of all of...

We evaluate the pollution and labor supply reductions from Beijing’s driving restrictions. Causal effects are identified from both time-series and spatial variation in air quality and intra-day variation in television viewership. Based on daily data from multiple monitoring stations, air...