This research investigates the profound influence of information friction on housing market outcomes in Beijing, China. Leveraging an extensive dataset of administrative micro-level housing resale transactions, we employ a boundary discontinuity design and difference-in-differences model to...

Intermediaries play an important role in markets with asymmetric information by reducing the search friction and uncertainty for buyers and sellers. However, when a conflict of interest arises, agents may not fully act on behalf of their clients. Using a unique dataset of both housing resale...

How does an epidemic affect individuals' expectations on economic prospects? Do people care more about containing the disease or sustaining normal economic activities during the epidemic? We implement an incentivized longitudinal online survey on economic expectations with randomized controlled...

In this study, we explore a 2013 policy shock that relaxed the One-Child Policy in China: couples were permitted to have two children if one parent is an only child. Exploiting employer-employee matched data encompassing 5.4 million employees in a major city, we show that after the policy shock...

In this paper, we investigate the determinants of household asset portfolios during the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Using an online longitudinal survey and focusing on a broad spectrum of assets, including stocks, gold, wealth management products, and houses, we show that more confirmed COVID-19...

Many efforts have been made to measure investor sentiment in financial markets, but only a few studies focus on housing markets. We build sentiment indexes for the Chinese housing market while observing that house price narratives are abundantly documented on social media. With the help of...