Results

Blog

VoxEU:

Place-based industrial policies in the long run

There is growing evidence that place-based industrial policies lead to positive economic effects. This column analyses the 'Million-Rouble Plants' programme of the 1950s when the Soviet Union helped China build state-of-...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Take-away findings from food delivery apps

Do delivery apps reduce or enhance the attraction of cities?...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

How to grow an invoicing currency: micro evidence from Argentina

We study the internationalization of the Chinese renminbi (RMB) leveraging a unique policy experiment. In 2023, amid a dollar shortage, Argentina expanded a currency swap line with China. The share of imports from China ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Evading the ban: smuggling, pollution, and the welfare effects of China?s waste import restrictions

While import restrictions are increasingly deployed to achieve non-trade objectives such as environmental protection, they often create distortions and leakage through illicit trade. We examine this trade-off in the cont...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade liberalization and third-market effects

We study how the end of the quota system for textiles and clothing products in the American and European markets on January 1, 2005, affected China?s exports to third countries, where policy was unchanged. Using a differ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Unpacking the restaurant experience: how food delivery technology favors the affluent urban core

We study how technological innovation has transformed the valuation of consumption services, using the sudden national expansion of food delivery services (FDS) in China as a natural experiment. Using a Bartik-style inst...Read more...

Blog

LSE USAPP:

The US-China rare earths deal shows the importance of critical materials in a new era of strategic interdependence

The accelerating shift to clean energy and advanced technologies is redrawing the map of global economic power. As nations and firms race to secure critical minerals, rare earths - small in trade value but high in strate...Read more...

CentrePiece article

How the US-China trade conflict boosted exports and employment in Mexico

Lower-paid workers in Mexican firms gained as exports shifted....Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Paper tiger? Chinese science and home bias in citations

We investigate the phenomenon of home bias in scientific citations, where researchers disproportionately cite work from their own country. We develop a benchmark for expected citations based on the relative size of count...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

How to grow an invoicing currency: micro evidence from Argentina

How can a currency achieve more widespread international use? We study the internationalization of the Chinese renminbi (RMB) through the lens of a unique policy experiment in Argentina. In 2023, amid a severe dollar sho...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

How the 2018/19 US tariffs against China boosted exports and employment in Mexico

In 2018 and 2019, the US administration hiked tariffs on imports from China. This column shows that imports from Mexico partly filled the gap, leading to an export and employment surge in Mexico. Using highly disaggregat...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

The US-China trade war created jobs (elsewhere)

In June 2016, Donald Trump justified the protectionist policies during his first administration as "the quickest way to bring our jobs back to our country". This column shows that while the trade war with China failed to...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

China Crisis

Headlines about China are dominated by the vagaries of trade war with the United States. Beyond those battles, there are big issues around consumer spending, the real estate market, the Belt and Road Initiative, and the ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The 2025 trade war: dynamic impacts across US States and the global economy

We use a dynamic trade and reallocation model with downward nominal wage rigidities to quantitatively assess the economic consequences of the recent increase in the U.S. tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, and China,...Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

Putting quantitative models to the test: an application to the US-China trade war

The primary motivation behind quantitative work in international trade and many other fields is to shed light on the economic consequences of policy changes and other shocks. To help assess and potentially strengthen the...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

US-China tensions could become the biggest trade war in history

The announced US tariffs and the retaliatory actions taken by China have intensified. If the threats are carried out, they will drive the average implied US tariff to exceed 20 per cent, a level not seen since the 1930s....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade with nominal rigidities: understanding the unemployment and welfare effects of the China shock

We present a dynamic quantitative trade and migration model that incorporates downward nominal wage rigidities and show how this framework can generate changes in unemployment and labor participation that match those unc...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Paper tiger? Chinese science and home bias in citations

We investigate the phenomenon of home bias in scientific citations, where researchers disproportionately cite work from their own country. We develop a benchmark for expected citations based on the relative size of count...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Accounting for the evolution of China's production and trade patterns

This paper studies the evolution of China's production and trade patterns during its integration into the global economy. We document and explain new facts concerning changes in production and exports at the industry and...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does Chinese research hinge on US co-authors? Evidence from the China initiative

Launched in November 2018 by the Trump administration, the China Initiative made administrative procedures more complicated and funding less accessible for collaborative projects between Chinese and US researchers. In th...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Who stands on the shoulders of Chinese (scientific) giants? Evidence from chemistry

China's rise in science has the potential to push forward the knowledge frontier, but mere production of knowledge does not guarantee that others are able to build on it. We ask whether chemistry research originating fro...Read more...

CentrePiece article

China at the technological frontier

The technology frontier that was dominated by the United States, Europe and Japan in the early 2000s is now much more polarised between the American and Chinese patent offices. Antonin Bergeaud and Cyril Verluise show th...Read more...

Blog

Inter Press Service:

Asia: the Power of Connections and their Consequences

In our recent book, "The Connections World: The Future of Asia", published by Cambridge University Press in October 2022, we argue that mutually beneficial links between dynastic business houses and political elites have...Read more...

Blog

The Diplomat:

Asia's Development Model Is Now Jeopardizing Its Future Economic Growth

Asia is facing an economic watershed moment. Turning the corner will require rethinking the role of its dominant, state-supported business groups....Read more...

Blog

Macroscope, South China Morning Post:

To become a world leader in innovation, China needs to loosen the economic reins

In a push for more tech breakthroughs, China is ramping up state spending on research and development. But without creating space for private sector innovation, China is unlikely to achieve the kind of results it wants....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The rise of China's technological power: the perspective from frontier technologies

We use patent data to study the contribution of the US, Europe, China and Japan to frontier technology using automated patent landscaping. We find that China's contribution to frontier technology has become quantitativel...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Structural change within versus across firms: evidence from the US

One feature of the US economy over the last five decades has been the transition away from manufacturing towards services. This column takes a firm-level view of structural change from 1977-2019 to study these sectoral d...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economics and Statistics:

Data-intensive innovation and the state: evidence from AI firms in China

Developing AI technology requires data. In many domains, government data far exceeds in magnitude and scope data collected by the private sector, and AI firms often gain access to such data when providing services to the...Read more...

Journal article

World Economy:

The trade impact of the Covid-19 pandemic

Using a gravity-like approach, we study how COVID-19 deaths and lockdown policies affected countries' imports from China during 2020. We find that a country's own COVID-19 deaths and lockdowns significantly reduced its i...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Import liberalisation as export destruction: evidence from the United States

Holger Breinlich, Elsa Leromain, Dennis Novy and Thomas Sampson look at US-China trade relations to examine how import liberalisation brings down import costs and increases competition, but can also lead to lower export ...Read more...

Journal article

Health and Place:

Income-related health inequality in urban China (1991-2015): the role of homeownership and housing conditions

Unprecedented economic growth has been experienced over the several decades worldwide, but such rapid economic growth wasn't accompanied by equally-substantial improvement in health, especially health inequalities betwee...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Autocratic AI dystopias: from science fiction to social science fact

The growth of artificial intelligence technology brings the potential of a 'fourth industrial revolution', but also poses challenges for democratic institutions. This column analyses the mutually reinforcing relationship...Read more...

Journal article

International Journal of Health Planning and Management:

Medical disputes and patient satisfaction in China: how does hospital management matter?

Objective: Satisfaction with healthcare may be captured by surveys of patients and staff, or in extreme cases, the number and severity of medical disputes. This study tries to investigate the relationship between satisfa...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

AI-tocracy

Can frontier innovation be sustained under autocracy? We argue that innovation and autocracy can be mutually reinforcing when: (i) the new technology bolsters the autocrat's power; and (ii) the autocrat's demand for the ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Import liberalization as export destruction? Evidence from the United States

How does import protection affect export performance? In trade models with scale economies, import liberalization can reduce an industry's exports by cutting domestic production. We find this export destruction mechanism...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

The 2020 trade impact of the Covid-19 pandemic

Worldwide merchandise trade flows decreased significantly in 2020, as Covid-19 disrupted economic activity across the globe. This column analyses how various pandemic-related factors shaped international trade flows. Spe...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The trade impact of the Covid-19 pandemic

Using a gravity-like approach, we study how Covid-19 deaths and lockdown policies affected countries' imports from China during 2020. We find that a country's own Covid-19 deaths and lockdowns significantly reduced its i...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Data-intensive innovation and the State: evidence from AI firms in China

Artificial intelligence (AI) innovation is data-intensive. States have historically collected large amounts of data, which is now being used by AI firms. Gathering comprehensive information on firms and government procur...Read more...

Blog

LSE US Centre:

Trade protection along supply chains: how antidumping measures against China hurt downstream industries

Production processes are often no longer confined to a single country; supply chains can be fragmented across great distances. By contrast, tariffs are often used by individual countries to protect certain industries. In...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Trade protection along supply chains: the negative effects of tariffs on downstream sectors

In a world in which production processes are fragmented across countries, the effects of tariffs propagate along supply chains, with firms in downstream industries suffering from protection upstream. This column studies...Read more...

Journal article

Review of Economic Studies:

A reply to Campbell and Mau

In Bloom et al. (2016, Bloom, Draca and Van Reenen (BDVR)), we have a set of nine results on the impact of Chinese trade. The first three showed that Chinese trade increased technical change in European firms measured by...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Pandemics, global supply chains and local labor demand: evidence from 100 million posted jobs in China

This paper studies how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected labor demand, using over 100 million posted jobs on one of the largest online platforms in China. Our data reveal that the number of newly posted jobs within the ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Productivity growth in one country affects the relative income and welfare of its trade partners

One of the most dramatic changes in the world economy over the past half century has been the emergence of China as a major force in world trade. A central question in international economics is the implications of such ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Growing like China: firm performance and global production line position

Global value chains have fundamentally transformed international trade and development in recent decades. We use matched firm-level customs and manufacturing survey data, together with Input-Output tables for China, to e...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Trade liberalization, input intermediaries and firm productivity: evidence from China

We investigate theoretically and empirically the role of wholesalers in mediating the productivity effects of trade liberalization. Intermediaries provide indirect access to foreign produced inputs. The productivity effe...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Geography:

Airports, access and local economic performance: evidence from China

In this article, we study the effect of airports on local economic performance that arises from better access to domestic markets in the context of China?s recent airport network expansion. We measure access through the ...Read more...

Journal article

Brazilian Review of Econometrics:

Winners and losers from China's ascension in international trade: a structural approach

This paper employs a unified theoretical framework to estimate the effect of changes within China on the Brazilian and World's economy. Based on the Ricardian model of trade of Costinot et al. (2012), we perform counterf...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade liberalization, input intermediaries and firm productivity: evidence from China

We investigate theoretically and empirically the role of wholesalers in mediating the productivity effects of trade liberalization. Intermediaries provide indirect access to foreign produced inputs. The productivity effe...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade shocks and credit reallocation

The effect of trade liberalization on welfare and economic activity remains one of the most important questions in economics. The literature identifies a number of key determinants that reduce the potential gains from tr...Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

The price ain't right? hospital prices and health spending on the privately insured

We use insurance claims data covering 28% of individuals with employersponsored health insurance in the United States to study the variation in health spending on the privately insured, examine the structure of insurer-h...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Airports and economic performance in China

China?s airport construction policy has been successful in boosting manufacturing output, according to research by Stephen Gibbons and Wenjie Wu. Their study also finds that productivity impacts have been greater for pri...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Development Economics:

Subsidies with export share requirements in China

A subsidy is subject to an export share requirement (ESR) when firms must export more than a certain share of their output to receive it. Such incentives are frequently found in free trade zones, export processing regime...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

Political favoritism in China's capital markets and its effect on city sizes

This paper examines political favoritism of cites in national capital markets and the effect of that favoritism on city sizes. The paper estimates the city-by-city variation in the prices of capital across cities in Chin...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Airports, Market Access and Local Economic Performance: Evidence from China

In this paper we study the effect of airports on local economic performance that arises from better access to domestic markets, using China?s recent rapid air network expansion. We estimate the effects of the implied cha...Read more...

CentrePiece article

High-speed rail in China

Encouraging innovation is a perennial policy goal ? and one common approach is to promote the adoption of foreign technology. Yatang Lin and colleagues examine the impact of China?s technology transfer policy, which has ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Investing in roads

Between 1990 and 2010, China constructed an extensive modern road network, including a national system of limited access highways. Vernon Henderson and colleagues investigate the impact on the growth of Chinese cities an...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Winners and losers from a commodities-for-manufactures trade boom

A recent boom in commodities-for-manufactures trade between China and other developing countries has led to much concern about the losers from rising import competition in manufacturing, but little attention on the winne...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

The Geography of City Liveliness and Land Use Configurations: Evidence from Location-Based Big Data in Beijing

This paper explores the complexity in the connection between city liveliness and land use configurations for housing and consumption amenities. The sources of this complexity are captured by an integrated spatial and tem...Read more...

CentrePiece article

China shock: the impact on trade and incomes

Is US presidential candidate Donald Trump right when he claims that the Chinese are causing serious damage to American workers? Research by Jo?o Paulo Pessoa analyses the impact of the recent massive increase in China?s ...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Highways, Market Access and Urban Growth in China

We investigate the effects of the construction of the national highway system in China on local economic outcomes. The analysis employs three main approaches. The first is based on a structural model of Ricardian trade t...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Protectionism through exporting: subsidies with export share requirements in China

We study the effect of subsidies subject to export share requirements (ESR) - that is, conditioned on a firm exporting at least a given fraction of its output - on exports, the intensity of competition and welfare, throu...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

How firms export: processing vs. ordinary trade with financial frictions

The fragmentation of production across borders allows firms to make and export final goods, or to perform only intermediate stages of production by processing imported inputs for re-exporting. We examine how financial fr...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

International competition and labor market adjustment

How does welfare change in the short- and long-run in high wage countries when integrating with low wage economies like China? Even if consumers benefit from lower prices, there can be significant welfare losses from inc...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economic Studies:

Trade induced technical change? The impact of Chinese imports on innovation, IT and productivity

We examine the impact of Chinese import competition on broad measures of technical change - patenting, IT, and TFP - using new panel data across twelve European countries from 1996 to 2007. In particular, we establish th...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

International technology transfer and domestic innovation: evidence from the high-speed rail sector in China

How does the transfer of advanced technology spur innovation in developing countries? This paper exploits the large-scale introduction of high-speed railway (HSR) technology into China in 2004 as a natural experiment to ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

How firms export: processing vs. ordinary trade with financial frictions

The fragmentation of production across borders allows firms to make and export final goods, or to perform only intermediate stages of production by processing imported inputs for re-exporting. We examine how financial fr...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Relational contracts and supplier turnover in the global economy

Headquarters and their specialized component suppliers have a vital interest in establishing long-term collaborations. When formal contracts are not enforceable, such efficiency enhancing cooperations can be established ...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Exploring the Geography of China's Airport Networks: A Hybrid Complex-Network Approach

Air networks are normal examples of transportation systems among ubiquitous big data networks in the dynamic nature. This is particularly the case in developing countries with rapid airport network expansions. This paper...Read more...

Journal article

The World Bank Economic Review:

The political economy of trade policy: gone for good? Subsidies with export share requirements in China: 2002-13

This paper presents a simple model of subsidies with export share requirements (ESR) in a heterogeneous firm environment. A two-country general equilibrium version of the model with a single 100% ESR is calibrated using ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gone for good? Subsidies with export share requirements in China: 2002-2013

This paper presents a simple model of subsidies with export share requirements (ESR) in a heterogeneous firm environment. A two-country general equilibrium version of the model with a single 100% ESR is calibrated using ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Winners and losers from a commodities-for-manufactures trade boom

A recent boom in commodities-for-manufactures trade between China and other developing countries has led to much concern about the losers from rising import competition in manufacturing, but little attention on the winne...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trapped factors and China's impact on global growth

When China?s accession to the WTO exposed European firms to import competition, they responded by increasing their investment in innovation. This response was stronger in industries and firms where factors of production ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... China's trading success: the role of pure exporter subsidies

China's government provides a wide range of incentives to encourage firms to produce almost exclusively for the foreign market. The authors analyse the impact of these 'pure exporter subsidies' on both the Chinese econom...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Does Better Rail Access Improve Homeowners? Happiness?: Evidence Based on Micro Surveys in Beijing

Development of urban transport infrastructures is a key policy focus---particularly in countries like China which have experienced fast urbanisation over the past decade. While existing studies provide marginal values fo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment

About 10% of US employees now regularly work from home (WFH), but there are concerns this can lead to ?shirking from home.? We report the results of a WFH experiment at CTrip, a 16,000-employee, NASDAQ-listed Chinese tra...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

CEO Incentive Contracts in China: Why Does City Location Matter?

CEO incentive contracts are commonplace in China but their incidence varies significantly across Chinese cities. We show that city and provincial policy experiments help explain this variance. We examine the role of two ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A Trapped Factors Model of Innovation

When will reducing trade barriers against a low wage country cause innovation to increase in high wage regions like the US or EU? We develop a model where factors of production have costs of adjustment and so are partial...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

China's Pure Exporter Subsidies

One third of Chinese exporters sell more than ninety percent of their production abroad. We argue that this distinctive pattern is attributable to a wide range of subsidies that provide incentives to these ?pure exporter...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Working or shirking?

Over 10% of US employees now regularly work from home (WFH), but there is widespread skepticism over its impact highlighted by phrases like ?shirking from home?. We report the results of a WFH experiment at Ctrip, a 13,0...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Productivity As If Space Mattered: An Application to Factor Markets Across China

Optimal production decisions depend on local market characteristics. This paper develops a model to explain firm labor demand and firm density across regions. Firms vary in their technology to combine imperfectly substit...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

What do we know about China's CEO's? Evidence from across the whole economy

All that we know about the CEO labour market in China comes from studies of public listed companies and state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This paper is the first to examine the operation of the CEO labour market across all...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Does Public Investment Spur the Land Market?: Evidence from Transport Improvement in Beijing

Over 140 billion CNY (1GBP=10CNY) has been spent between 2000 and 2012 in Beijing on the construction of new rail transit lines. This massive public investment allows me to examine the consequences of transport improveme...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Spatial Variations in Amenity Values: New Evidence from Beijing, China

Using parks as an example, this paper explores the robustness and sources of spatial variation in the estimated amenity values using an extended geographically weighted regression (GWR) technique. This analysis, illustra...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The CEO Labour Market in China's Public Listed Companies

Using panel data for all of China?s public listed firms over the period 2001-2010 we examine how firms have recruited and rewarded their executives over a decade of huge growth and turbulence. CEO pay is sensitive to fir...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

CEO Bonding: Who Posts Performance Bonds and Why?

Despite their theoretical value in tackling principal-agent problems at low cost to firms there is almost no empirical literature on the prevalence and correlates of performance bonds posted by corporate executives. Usin...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Why Has China Grown So Fast? The Role of International Technology Transfer

Chinese economic growth has been spectacular in the last 30 years. We investigate the role of International Joint Ventures with Technology Transfer agreements, an understudied area. Technology transfer is the traditional...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Challenges for the dollar as a reserve currency

Gianluca Benigno examines the extent to which the financial crisis has undermined the dollar's pre-eminence....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade induced technical change? The impact of Chinese imports on innovation, IT and productivity

We examine the impact of Chinese import competition on broad measures of technical change - patenting, IT, R&D, TFP and management practices ? using new panel data across twelve European countries between 1996-2007. We c...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Import Competition from and Outsourcing to China: A Curse or Blessing for Firms?

We use Belgian manufacturing firm-level data over the period 1996- 2007 to analyze the impact of imports from different origins on firm growth, exit, and skill upgrading. For this purpose we use both industry-level and f...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade as an Engine of Creative Destruction: Mexican Experience with Chinese Competition

This paper exploits the surge in Chinese exports from 1994 to 2004 as a natural experiment to evaluate the effects of a unilateral low wage trade and competition shock to producers in Mexico. We find that this shock caus...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Chinese Unions: Nugatory or Transforming? An 'Alice' Analysis

China has, apparently, more trade union members than the rest of the world put together. But the unions do not function in the same way as western trade unions. In particular Chinese unions are subservient to the Partyst...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

One Third of the World's Growth and Inequality

This paper studies growth and inequality in China and India u two economies that account for a third of the world's population. By modelling growth and inequality as components in a joint stochastic process, the paper c...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Whence Reform? A Critique of the Stiglitz Perspective

This paper discusses the key hypotheses which Joseph Stiglitz proposed, in his wide-ranging critique of the 'Washington Consensus', with regard to transition reforms and economic polices in China and Russia. The primar...Read more...