This paper studies the causes and consequences of political centralization and fragmentation in China and Europe. We argue that the severe and unidirectional threat of external invasion fostered political centralization in China while Europe faced a wider variety of smaller external threats and...

The South China Sea has attracted considerable attention among politicians, journalists and scholars since it has become a contested maritime space. Most works concentrate on conflicts and negotiations to resolve the ensuing issues. In this paper, a cultural theory will be applied to stress the...

This paper investigates Samuelson's (JEP, 2004) argument that technical progress of the trade partner may hurt the home country. We illustrate this prospect in a simple Ricardian model for sitations with outward knowledge spillovers. Within this framework Samuelson's "Act II" effects may occur....

We study how the 2004 reform of minimum wage rules in China has affected the survival, average wage, employment and productivity of local firms. To identify the causal effect of minimum wage growth, we use firm-level data for more than 160,000 manufacturing firms active in 2003 and complement...

FDI may affect the supply of productive resources including (financial capital, equipment and machinery, technology, management and etc.). FDI creates employment where unemployment and underemployment rate is high and thus increases the income of the workers. As a result an additional savings to...

This work investigates the motivations behind the Chinese fiscal policy on exports. It relies on very detailed product level (HS 6 digit) data over the period 2002-12 covering both export tax and export VAT rebate. It aims to uncover the respective importance of the various policy motivations...

During the last decade, the Chinese government has frequently changed the value added tax (VAT) refund levels offered to exporters. Indeed, China's VAT system is not neutral, in particular because the exporters may not receive complete refund of the domestic VAT paid on their inputs. This paper...

This paper uses the methodology developed in Kehoe and Ruhl (2013) to measure the change in the extensive, or new goods, margin of trade between Japan and China after China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. The new goods account for 15.9% of Japanese exports to China and 22% of...

This dissertation is anchored in the disruptive impact of China’s resource-based economic expansion over the last two decades. Whilst the country’s economic growth follows traditional patterns of development, the size of China’s population challenges the small-country assumption inherent...

Foreign exchange reserve accumulation has risen dramatically in recent years. The introduction of the euro, greater liquidity in other major currencies, and the rising current account deficits and external debt of the United States have increased the pressure on central banks to diversify away...