The ethics of tax evasion has been discussed sporadically in the theological and philosophical literature for at least 500 years. Martin Crowe wrote a doctoral thesis that reviewed much of that literature in 1944. The debate revolved around about 15 issues. Over the centuries, three main views...

This paper develops a stylized multi-sector growth model of China's economy. We choose a neoclassical modeling approach and focus on the reform process under Deng Xiaoping as China's main growth driver since 1978. Following the literature, we distinguish between three major reform periods,...

The purpose of this paper is to highlight a version of the Balassa-Samuelson effect for emerging countries with a new dataset. More than the catching-up effect, we will measure the convergence for three emerging countries: Brazil/China/India. We will compare the convergence between these...

China's economic growth over the past three decades is unprecedented. Although this growth is commonly attributed to a high domestic savings rate among “thrifty” Chinese, savings alone cannot promote economic growth unless productivity has continuously grown for such a long period. This...

Rebalancing growth toward domestic demand has emerged as a key postcrisis challenge for sustaining developing Asia’s rapid growth in the medium and long term. The central objective of this paper is to explore the role of fiscal policy in the region’s rebalancing process. What matters most...

Rebalancing growth toward domestic demand has emerged as a key postcrisis challenge for sustaining developing Asia's rapid growth in the medium and long term. The central objective of this paper is to explore the role of fiscal policy in the region's rebalancing process. What matters most for...

Can Protestantism make people more honest? If yes, what does this mean for corporate behaviors and economic performance? Marshalling large and unique datasets on the 1920 Protestant diffusion in China, and the financial reports of about 125,000 Chinese industrial firms from 1999 to 2007, we find...

We study the role of internal control in tax avoidance by evaluating the efficacy of the COSO framework in tax risk management. First, we use a comprehensive COSO-based index in China that covers a firm's internal control over not only financial reporting, but also operations and compliance....

One institutional feature behind China's spectacular economic growth is its political selection system, which it uses to promote officials who are capable of growing local economies. Against this backdrop, we examine how political turnovers cyclically influence firms' tax avoidance behavior....

The split share structure reform in China aligned the incentive of controlling shareholders with that of minority shareholders by granting trading rights to previously non-tradable shares. We find that the reform increases firms' tax avoidance activities that are value-enhancing. However, the...