We demonstrate the negative impact of air pollution on China’s Initial Public Offering review process. We find that the pass rate of firms with connection to the review committee is increased by 10 percentage points when reviewed on a polluted day. The effect only exists for air pollution...

This paper considers lending to finance projects in a setting where repayment enforcement appears impossible. The loan was illegal and thus legally unenforceable. Creditors were incapable of applying private coercion to force repayment. Borrowers lacked both collateral and reputation capital....

Using a uniquely collected dataset on Chinese movies, we investigate the impact of studios’ profit orientation on their movie themes under censorship. The Value Adjustment Mechanism (VAM), which links executives’ incomes with studios’ box office within 5 years after the studios are...

Using location- and time-specific fine particulate matter pollution (PM2.5) data in Beijing, we document that regulators are more likely to approve IPOs in China on hazy days. Our results are robust to specifications that control for listing firms' characteristics, composition of the IPO review...

This paper studies how demographics, such as the number of children in a family, affect various motives to save. We make two contributions with this paper. First, we document findings from a unique dataset derived through our survey of Shidu parents in two counties of central China, whose only...

This paper studies how demographics, such as the number of children in a family, affect various motives to save. We make two contributions with this paper. First, we document findings from a unique dataset derived through our survey of Shidu parents in two counties of central China, whose only...

Through a unique database on daily activities of municipal party secretaries, we find that they spend a significant part of their work time on political and propaganda activities, including organizing various meetings to promote the central government's spirit ideology. We find that officials...