The Chinese government has been pursuing economic growth under the guidance of “growth is a hard principle”. In the context of the Chinese political and economic governance system, local governments have employed the overtaking strategy (placing primary emphasis on the development of capital...

The case of China seems to present a counterexample to the literature on economic institutions as its private enterprises have achieved spectacular growth despite poor protection of private properties and difficulties in accessing external finance. In this study, we address this apparent puzzle...

China has maintained a financial system with favorable treatments toward state-owned enterprises. Albeit having been denied access to formal financing such as bank loans, China's non-state firms have grown rather fast. China's experience has often been interpreted as indicating that alternative...

Market economy models differ in the degree of the power of the government vis-à-vis the market in the economy. Under the classifications set forth by Glaeser and Shleifer (2002, 2003), and Djankov et al. (2003), these market models range from those emphasizing low government intervention in the...

In response to the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative, China's overseas direct investment (ODI), especially mergers and acquisitions, rose significantly in the belt-road countries, especially the land-based ones. Comparatively speaking, state-controlled acquirers played a leading role in...

This paper studies the role of insider trading in explaining cross-country differences in stock market volatility. It introduces a new measure of insider trading. The central finding is that countries with more prevalent insider trading have more volatile stock markets, even after one controls...

This study examines a particular form of shadow banking activities performed by non-financial firms, in which firms borrow in order to lend, acting as financial intermediaries. We identify the existence of such re-lending business by investigating the relationship between financial assets and...

This paper decomposes consumption risk sharing among provinces in China over the 1980-2007 period. We find that 9.4 percent of the shocks to gross provincial product are smoothed by the interprovincial fiscal transfer system. This system also cushions a relatively large fraction of the...

This paper studies the role of insider trading in explaining cross-country differences in stock market volatility. The central finding is that countries with more prevalent insider trading have more volatile stock markets, even after one controls for liquidity/maturity of the market and the...