A Bridge on Economic Issues between China and the World
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Do Chinese Cultures Spawn Family Businesses?
Joseph P. H. Fan, Qiankun Gu, Xin Yu, Jan 12, 2022Using a sample of Chinese private-sector firms that went public, we find that founders from the country’s regions with stronger collectivist cultures engage more family members as managers, retain more firm ownership within the family, and share the controlling ownership with more family members. Our study suggests that the collectivist culture boosts the formation of family businesses because the collectivist culture reduces information asymmetry, shirking problems, and associated monitoring costs among family members.
What Happens to Rural Labor Supply Following the Birth of a Son or a Daughter?
Shing-Yi Wang, Nov 20, 2019Our research shows that rural Chinese women's labor supply falls for one year following the birth of a daughter before returning to pre-birth levels while the negative impact of a son on women's labor supply is larger and persists for four years. Furthermore, there is a decrease in household cigarette consumption, and an increase in the mother's probability of being in school, her leisure time, and her participation in...
Do Multinationals Transfer Culture? Evidence on Female Employment in China
Heiwai Tang, Yifan Zhang, Nov 10, 2021In our recent paper (Tang and Zhang 2021), we investigate the global diffusion of culture through multinationals. We study specifically how foreign affiliates serve as a vehicle to diffuse gender norms from their countries of origin to China. Based on Chinese manufacturing firm-level data, we find that foreign affiliates in China tend to employ proportionally more female workers than local Chinese firms within the same industry...
Does External Monitoring from the Government Improve the Performance of State-Owned Enterprises?
Shengyu Li, Hongsong Zhang, Nov 03, 2021We investigate the impact of external monitoring from the government on state-owned enterprise performance, using the variation in monitoring strength arising from a nationwide policy change and firms’ geographic location in China. We utilize a structural approach to estimate input prices and productivity separately at the firm level using commonly available production data. We show that...
Can Information Influence the Social Insurance Participation of China’s Rural Migrants?
John Giles, Xin Meng, Sen Xue, Guochang Zhao, Apr 10, 2019We use a randomized information intervention to shed light on whether poor understanding of social insurance—in terms of both the enrollment process and the associated costs and benefits—drives the relatively low rates of participation in urban health insurance and pension programs among China's rural-urban migrants. Among workers without a contract...
