Fiscal decentralization introduced as part of China's economic reform since 1979 has unleashed strong incentives for China's local governments to pursue economic development, but the same incentives have also led to local protectionist policies inhibiting the process of regional specialization....

This paper analyzes a model with many homogeneous agents, whose effort can be allocated to two tasks. One task produces a public good that is an important input for the production of the final output. The other task only affects the agent's own output. We show that, when the public input and the...

This paper presents a model of the joint venture that is grounded in the stylized facts we found from a sample of 200 joint venture contracts. The model incorporates the revenue-sharing contract into the incomplete contract frameworks of Grossman-Hart-Moore Property Rights Theory and the...

We present a model of team production motivated by the stylized facts we found from a sample of 200 joint-venture contracts. The model incorporates the revenue-sharing contract into the property rights and the transaction cost theories of the firm, and it emphasizes the impact of expropriation....

During transition, maintaining employment and providing a social safety net to the unemployed are important to social stability, which in turn is crucial for the productivity of the whole economy. Because independent institutions for social safety are lacking and firms with strong profit...

Using a comprehensive panel data set of China’s state-owned enterprises, we investigate the impacts of privatization, of different time sequences and extent of non-state ownership, on social welfare and firm performance. Attention has been focused on the sources of gain in firm performance and...

Poor protection of private property has limited the access to bank loans by private enterprises in developing and transition economies. Under those circumstances, private entrepreneurs have resorted to various ways of enhancing the "de facto" protection of private property. Using a dataset of...

Bai, Chong-En, Lu, Jiangyong, and Tao, Zhigang--How does privatization work in China? Using a comprehensive panel data set of China's state-owned enterprises, we investigate the impacts of privatization on social welfare and firm performance indicators. The privatization of China's state-owned...