Institutional dynamics and access to non-farm employment in rural China, 1950–1996

This article examines non-farm employment in the context of Chinese rural institutional change, based on evidence from discrete-time logistic models for event history analysis using the Life History and Social Change survey. We find the transition to non-farm sector rose rapidly during the Great Leap Forward and market reform, while the Cultural Revolution saw it reach the lowest ebb. While male advantage prevailed exclusively during the Cultural Revolution and early marketization, education possessed a stable positive effect in all historical periods. Although the returns to different kinds of political capital vary along with institutional dynamics, intergenerational reproduction was greatly reduced after the Cultural Revolution.     

理性人的人情味：快手“老铁经济”的内在机制和逻辑

以中国用户规模最大短视频平台之一快手头部主播直播带货推广项目的案例和数据分析为基础,构建解释快手直播电商经济底层逻辑的社会学机制模型.提出快手直播电商经济背后的3种社会学机制:关键影响者逻辑、身份认同逻辑和社会网络逻辑.通过LDA文档主题生成模型将快手主播的直播语义字段进行文档主题生成归类,发现情感因素和理性因素词交互影响受众的购买决策,它背后的社会学作用机制是关键影响者逻辑和身份认同逻辑.2020年快手直播电商半年交易额已达1044亿元,理解快手直播背后的影响机制,能够持续优化推广模型,在互联网流量广告领域具有重要的应用价值.     

Structural estimation of behavioral heterogeneity

We develop a behavioral asset pricing model in which agents trade in a market with information friction. Profit‐maximizing agents switch between trading strategies in response to dynamic market conditions. Owing to noisy private information about the fundamental value, the agents form different evaluations about heterogeneous strategies. We exploit a thin set—a small sub‐population—to point identify this nonlinear model, and estimate the structural parameters using extended method of moments. Based on the estimated parameters, the model produces return time series that emulate the moments of the real data. These results are robust across different sample periods and estimation methods.     

禽流感危机下肉鸡产业市场状态分析*——基于互联网大数据和MS-VAR模型

[目的]为了有效应对禽流感冲击、维持肉鸡产业稳定健康发展。[方法]基于互联网大数据构建了禽流感舆情指数,选取2012年1月至2017年3月周度数据,通过MS-VAR模型分析了禽流感危机下肉鸡市场状态的转换特征以及不同市场状态下产业链价格传导关系。[结果]2012年以来可将肉鸡产业市场状态划分为危机状态和正常状态,肉鸡产业市场在两个市场状态下转换频繁;肉鸡产业危机市场状态和正常市场状态平均持续期分别为4.65周和9.05周;肉鸡市场在区制转移概率上存在明显的非对称特征;肉雏鸡、活鸡和白条鸡价格之间在危机状态下相关性小于正常市场状态下相关性;不同市场状态下肉鸡产业链价格传导存在差异;肉鸡产业市场在危机状态下不稳定程度明显增加。[结论]提出了加大对禽流感疫情的监测以及疫情处理能力,密切关注公众禽流感舆情动态变动情况,做好舆情引导,加强禽流感疫情科学知识的宣传,增强公众对禽流感的认知等对策建议。     

Using a dual-frame design to improve phone surveys on political attitudes: developing a weighting strategy for limited external information in Hong Kong

Quality & Quantity - In recent years, rapid increases in mobile phone ownership and decreases in landline users have led to potential biases in landline phone survey estimations. Mobile-only...     

Resource Dependence and Network Relations: A Test of Venture Capital Investment Termination in China

This study examines how venture capital (VC) firms terminate investments in an emerging economy context. We contend that due to the weak institutional environment, it is appropriate to draw on insights from power and social relation perspectives for a better understanding of the phenomenon. Specifically, we argue that a termination decision hinges on not only the dependence relationship between a VC firm and its portfolio companies, but also the social relationships among VC firms. Event history analyses of approximately 12,000 VC deals made in China between 2001 and 2012 reveal that when a VC firm has a greater number of investments in an industry, it is more likely to terminate investments on a portfolio company in that industry. Moreover, such effect on termination is moderated by the focal VC's embeddedness with its syndicate partners and collaboration opportunities with other VC firms outside the immediate access of the syndicate partners. Our study sheds light on research on VC decision making in emerging markets by integrating insights from resource dependence relationships and interorganizational network characteristics.     

Aid for trade and the quality of exports

This article studies how aid for trade (AfT) affects the quality of recipient countries’ exports. It shows that the quality effect is most discernible for AfT for assistance in trade policy: a 50% increase in the value of AfT received in this category is associated with a 0.5–1% increase in the quality of exports to the donor and other OECD countries. On average, the actual AfT received for assistance in trade policy leads to a 2% upgrade of the recipient country in the quality ladder of all developing countries. Around half of this quality effect is driven by the quality improvement of continued products in continued markets (intensive margin), and the other half by the quality upgrading of new products in continued markets and existing products in new markets (extensive margin).     

China’s Contingencies: Critical Geopolitics,Chinese Exceptionalism and the Uses of History

This paper examines the intimate relationship between narratives emanating from China and their uses of Chinese history, and how such perspectives inform China’s geopolitical positioning and practices in lieu of its purported ‘rise’. Taking inspiration from the deconstructive impetus of critical geopolitics, this article contends that these historical claims to China’s rise constitute deterministic accounts, hinging on the notion of Chinese exceptionalism to provide discursive backing for a Sinocentric geopolitical order in the coming decades. This in turn downplays ‘alternative’ historiographies that can shed light on how the nature of China’s emergence may be more dependent on and shaped by the external environment than previously acknowledged. Building on the historical-geographical expositions related to the idea of contingency, this article demonstrates how China (whether it be in the past or present) cannot be seen as operating in a vacuum but has to constantly negotiate and adjust its strategy of engagements/interactions based on the specific demands imposed by world politics. Specifically, by elucidating these dimensions through cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan, it is argued that understanding China’s contingencies can raise important questions for us to critically appreciate the contextual actors, processes and relationships that differentially impact on China’s engagements in the world.     

Board directors with foreign experience and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

This study examines the impact of board directors with foreign experience (BDFEs) on stock price crash risk. We find that BDFEs help reduce crash risk. This association is robust to a series of robustness checks, including a firm fixed effects model, controlling for possibly omitted variables, and instrumental variable estimations. Moreover, we find that the negative association between BDFEs and crash risk is more pronounced for firms with more agency problems, weaker corporate governance, and less overall transparency. Our findings suggest that the characteristics of board directors matter in determining stock price crash risk.     

ECONOMIC TRANSITION AND LABOUR MARKET DYNAMICS IN CHINA: AN INTERPRETATIVE SURVEY OF THE ‘TURNING POINT’ DEBATE

Has the Chinese economy approached the ‘Lewisian turning point’ that marks the ending of the initial phase of industrial transformation fuelled by surplus labour? In this paper we undertake an interpretative survey of the literature on this issue, in the context of China's labour market conditions prior to the reforms and structural change of the past three decades. The available evidence is mixed, and our assessment makes a strong case for probing institutional constraints to labour mobility from an economy‐wide perspective, going beyond the confines of the rural economy.