This paper analyzes the causes and consequences of founding family engagement in firm ownership and management. We hypothesize that families manage their firms because they are able to make contributions that non-family managers cannot provide. However, roadblocks arising from within the family,...

Based on interviews and a questionnaire administered to 25 factory directors in November 1988, this study investigates factors that determine the bargaining power of large and medium-sized Chinese factories. It shows that directors of larger, higher-ranking factories are more successful in...

This paper attempts to distinguish and estimate the direct and indirect effects of infrastructure on firm productivity. The latter arises from the infrastructure-agglomeration link and has been largely overlooked in the literature on infrastructure. An analytical framework is then developed to...

Overseas Chinese communities are an important determinant in the location choice of greenfield investments made by mainland Chinese multinational enterprises across European regions. Conceptually embedded in a relational approach, this effect is shown through an empirical analysis of an...

This paper investigates the role of personal relationships for doing business in the Greater Pearl River Delta, China. First, it discusses the interplay of formal and informal (relationship-based) institutions from the point of view of institutional economics, with a focus on economies with weak...

This paper describes the Chinese economic and institutional reform process as a gradual transition of an informal, relation-based governance system into a more formal and rule-based governance system. The consequences of macro-level institutional reforms on the importance of personal...

This paper studies the causal effect of technology and knowledge transfers on early industrial development. Between 1950 and 1957, the Soviet Union supported the "156 Projects" in China for building technologically advanced industrial facilities. We exploit idiosyncratic delays in project...

This paper investigates whether and how China's adoption of Soviet-aided industrialization programs in the 1950s has affected its long-run innovation. Focusing on 156 major industrial projects aided by the Soviet Union, combined with an instrumental variable approach, I find that the adoption of...

The import competition literature suggests that Chinese industrial policies and technological trends have altered the nature of competition with China so that it does not take place on a level playing field anymore. Empirical evidence about firms' reactions in developed economies to competition...

A firm's top manager and a government official may be connected due to special circumstances. This social relationship or political connection may provide industrial polluters with protection or a "pollution shelter" which could lead to severe environmental deterioration. This paper aims to...