House-purchasing regulations have frequently been adopted by the Chinese government to cool the overheated housing market. Under-reporting of transaction prices has also been widely employed by home buyers to reduce transaction taxes. This paper suggests that by under-reporting to a greater...

This paper studies the cross-border transmission of exchange rate volatility through foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs)’ investments. We find that exchange rate volatility in FIEs’ home countries reduces the investments made by FIEs, which is exacerbated in industries with greater financial...

This paper reveals the role of Yin-and-Yang contracts in evading transaction regulations in China’s housing market. Using micro-observations of Beijing’s housing resales, we find buyers are engaged in “Yin-and-Yang” contracts with higher degree of under-reporting during “the most...

We identify a positive causal effect of patent pledgeability on corporate patenting. Our tests exploit the staggered city-level policy change, which allows firms to use patents as collateral for financing. We find a significant increase in patents and patent citations for firms headquartered in...

Big cities often witness land price outgrowing structure price. For such cities this paper derives two predictions regarding the dynamics between house price, rent and structure age. First, older houses have a higher price growth rate than younger ones, even after controlling for location and...