Taiwan was perhaps the first developing country to adopt an export-oriented trade strategy after World War II. The factors usually associated with big shifts in policy--a macroeconomic crisis, a change in political power or institutions, lobbying by export interests, pressure from international...

Does the offshoring of production degrade or enhance the innovative capabilities of manufacturing firms? We contribute to this debate by exploiting a policy shock that differentially affected the ability of Taiwanese firms to offshore some products to China. We find causal evidence that...

Farmers have higher rates of disability and illness than the general population and more volatile incomes due to frequent crop and livestock losses from extreme weather events. This raises concerns that sudden, weather-related drops in farm income could reduce access to health care for an...

Superstition is a widespread phenomenon. We empirically examine its impact on health-related behavior and health outcomes. We study the case of the Taiwanese Ghost Month. During this period, which is believed to increase the likelihood of bad outcomes, we observe substantial adaptions in...

We construct a model of firm dynamics with heterogeneous productivity and distortions. The productivity distribution evolves endogenously as the result of the decisions of firms seeking to upgrade their productivity over time. Firms can adopt two strategies toward that end: imitation and...

We investigate how the coronavirus pandemic affected the demand for online food shopping services using data from the largest agri-food e-commerce platform in Taiwan. We find that an additional confirmed case of COVID-19 increased sales by 5.7% and the number of customers by 4.9%. The demand for...

A positive correlation between productivity and export market participation has been well documented in producer micro data. Recent empirical studies and theoretical analyses have emphasized that this may reflect the producer's other investment activities, particularly investments in R&D or new...

This paper presents novel empirical evidence on the impact of access to abortion on sex ratios at birth (SRB), excess female mortality (EFM) and fertility in Taiwan. For identification, we exploit plausibly exogenous variation in the availability of sex-selective abortion caused by the...

This paper exploits a natural experiment to estimate the causal impact of parental education on child health in Taiwan. In 1968, the Taiwanese government extended compulsory education from six to nine years. From that year through 1973, the government opened 254 new junior high schools, an 80...

The effect of new health information on individuals' expectations about their longevity is examined using a Bayesian learning model. Using two-period panel-structured survey data from Taiwan, we find that subjective probabilities of living to age 75 and 85 are significantly smaller for...