We investigate how firms adapt to trademark protection, an extensively used but underexamined form of IP protection, by exploring a historical precedent: China’s trademark law of 1923—an unanticipated and disapproved response to end foreign privileges in China. By exploiting a unique, newly...

China is undergoing its long-awaited industrial revolution. There is no shortage of commentary and opinion on this dramatic period, but few have attempted to provide a coherent, in-depth, politicaleconomic framework that explains the fundamental mechanisms behind China’s rapid...

The current Chinese development model is nearing its limits. The World Bank has cautioned that China could find itself in a “middle-income trap”. China recognizes that it must dramatically increase its capacity for innovation to avoid this trap. This chapter provides an introduction to the...

Despite an emerging literature on political determinants of economic performance in China, little is known about whether standing committees of the Communist Party, an institution of collective leadership, matters for economic development. Using Chinese provincial level data for 1997-2011, we...

Eric Jones has found that excessive taxes were detrimental for pre-modern China's economic growth whereas moderate taxes were conducive for Europe's economic growth. This paper provides a political-economic answer to the question why these two tax systems came about. Taxation is only feasible...

Patterns of political unification and fragmentation have crucial implications for comparative economic development. Diamond (1997) famously argued that “fractured land” was responsible for China's tendency toward political unification and Europe's protracted political fragmentation. We build...

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

Chinese investors are now the largest number of foreign investors in US residential and commercial real estate. Many buy in upscale, exclusive markets. It is little known, however, that in the past Chinese faced severe property discrimination in the US. This paper traces three eras of Chinese...

Starting with the framework of New Institutional Economics, this Comment examines the institutional arrangements of Chinese and U.S. governance, and then scrutinizes their respective policy responses to the financial collapse of 2008. The latent thesis is that, notwithstanding differences in...

This study attempts a first causal examination of the role of state capacity in China's economic performance. Effective state capacity connotes not just ability to extract tax from citizens but also the ability to convert taxes into public investment. Equally importantly, these capacities must...