Using a new, nationally representative sample of Chinese households, this paper studies how social capital affects access to credit and its implications for consumption levels. The paper focuses on two specific forms of social capital: private social networks and membership in the Communist...

Using a new and representative data set of Chinese household finance, this paper documents household access to and costs of finance, along with their correlates. As in most developing countries, informal finance is a crucial element of household finance, and wealth tends to be associated with...

A void in the literature on the business environment is how it evolves over time. Focusing on China during its crucial two decades of transition (from the early 1990s to the early 2010s), this paper documents how the country's business environment and the characteristics of entrepreneurs...

Over the last three decades, China's product, labor, and capital markets have become gradually more integrated within its borders, although integration has been significantly slower for capital markets. There remains a significant urban-rural divide, and Chinese cities tend to be under-sized by...

China is now the world's largest destination of foreign direct investment (FDI), despite assessments highlighting its institutional deficiencies. But this FDI inflow corresponds closely to predicted FDI flows into China from a model that predicts FDI inflow based on government quality indicators...

While the literature on consumption insurance is growing fast, little research has been conducted on how rural consumption insurance is affected by democracy. In this paper the authors examine how consumption insurance of Chinese rural residents is affected if the local leader is democratically...

Using a large panel dataset of Chinese industrial firms, the authors examine the determinants of access to loans from formal financial intermediaries and extension of trade credit. Poorly performing state-owned enterprises were more likely to redistribute credit to firms with less privileged...

Using World Bank Enterprise Survey data around the world, this paper examines how foreign direct investment is associated with female entrepreneurship (that is, a firm being managed and at least partly owned by women), along with other factors such as business environment and female empowerment,...

Hayek argues that local knowledge is a key for understanding whether production should be decentralized. This paper tests Hayek?s predictions by examining the causes of the Chinese government?s decision to decentralize state-owned enterprises. Since the government located closer to a state-owned...

The empirical literature on institutions and development has been challenged on grounds of reverse causality, measurement error in institutional indicators, and heterogeneity. This paper uses firm-level data across countries to confront these challenges. Instead of analyzing ultimate outcomes,...