Because of China's socialist legacy, until recently little attention has been paid to the rise of informal employment. Under planning urban workers enjoyed guaranteed employment, housing, pensions, and health care. The prevalence of informal employment has important implications for public...

Using data from a national survey of Chinese manufacturing firms conducted in 2009, the authors analyze the impact of implementation of China's 2008 labor contract law on the employment of production workers. The authors found that cities with lax prior enforcement of labor regulations...

We develop tests of financial intermediation by national banking systems that exploit regional financial and economic data. Derived from a model of bank profit maximization, the tests are based on the expectation that in efficient systems, financial intermediation should not be overly influenced...

East Asia is undergoing a rapid demographic transition and "super" aging. As a result of steadily decreasing fertility and increasing life expectancy, older people's proportion of the population and the old-age dependency ratio is rising across all countries in East Asia, particularly in the...

We study children's access to remote learning when schools were closed during the COVID-19 pandemic and their parents' perceptions about learning progress in seven Southeast Asian countries. This is the first regional analysis to systematically document students' access to remote learning based...