{"title":"Does judicial improvement promote corporate trade credit financing? Evidence from the establishment of circuit courts in China","authors":"Lu Yao , Yifei Liang , Mengde Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.12.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.12.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The establishment of circuit courts is an important measure to enhance judicial impartiality and independence, and thus improve the local judicial environment. This paper takes the establishment of circuit court as a quasi-natural experiment of judicial improvement, and empirically examines the impact of judicial improvement on trade credit financing by using a staggered difference-in-differences (DID) model with Chinese firms from 2009 to 2023 as the research sample. It is found that the trade credit financing of enterprises after the establishment of the circuit court increases significantly. The mechanism test indicates that improving local judicial efficiency, alleviating local protectionism and reducing corporate defaults are important channels through which the establishment of circuit courts promotes corporate trade credit financing. Heterogeneity tests indicate that the positive effect of circuit court establishment on trade credit financing is systematically stronger for a state-owned enterprises, firms without political connections, and those exhibiting higher gross profit margins, smaller size, or weaker pre-existing financing capacity. This paper provides empirical evidence that the legal environment improvement is conductive to the financial market development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100238,"journal":{"name":"China Economic Quarterly International","volume":"5 4","pages":"Pages 213-235"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145799828","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does distance promote consumption: The role of city shape","authors":"Chunzhi Li , Wenhan Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.12.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.12.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recently, studies have emphasized the consumption amenities of cities, which are as important as city morphology. This study provides empirical evidence that addresses questions regarding the impact of city shape on consumption in China. This study uses night-light data to quantify the compactness of city shapes of Chinese cities. Four indices of city shape were calculated to reflect the different morphological properties of each city. IVs are constructed to mitigate endogeneity problems derived from time-varying historical features and non-time-varying geographical characteristics. The results indicate that higher compactness induces higher consumption by increasing intra-city travel frequency and disposable income. Transforming the samples and empirical equations did not affect the robustness of the results. Heterogeneity exists among households, with high-income households and households with young heads being less sensitive to changes in city-shape compactness. City shape does not affect marginal propensity to consume. This study emphasizes the importance of maintaining a compact city shape, and policies improving the intra-city transportation infrastructure can alleviate the negative consumption impact of non-compact city shapes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100238,"journal":{"name":"China Economic Quarterly International","volume":"5 4","pages":"Pages 236-251"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145842250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Firm's basic research and breakthrough innovation-- from the perspective of resource-based view","authors":"Mingnian Liu , Lin Huang , Yu Shen","doi":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2026.01.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2026.01.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>With intensifying global competition and rapid technological advancement, breakthrough innovation has become a critical avenue for firms to build sustainable competitive advantages. Based on a resource-based view, we provide a theoretical foundation to explain that high-quality basic research plays a fundamental role to achieve firms’ breakthrough innovation. By using Chinese dataset, we find that firms with strong basic research capabilities can boost their breakthrough innovation. Further analyses show that basic research facilitates breakthrough innovation through three mechanisms: enhancing knowledge diversity, increasing access to government R&D subsidies, and strengthening R&D collaboration. Heterogeneity analyses reveal that the effect of basic research is more pronounced for firms with higher absorptive capacity, larger firm size, and in technology-intensive sectors. Moreover, the positive impact of basic research on breakthrough innovation is stronger in more competitive industries. These findings have important implications for understanding the role of corporate basic research in fostering breakthrough innovation, particularly under increasing external technological constraints.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100238,"journal":{"name":"China Economic Quarterly International","volume":"5 4","pages":"Pages 268-285"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146074083","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does the housing provident fund crowd out the households’ non-housing consumption? Evidence from Chinese micro data","authors":"Anquan Zhang , Jiaxin Xiong , Lu Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2026.01.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2026.01.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the causal effect of mandatory housing provident fund (HPF) contributions on non-housing consumption patterns among urban Chinese households. Leveraging cross-sectional data from the 2017 China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), we employ instrumental variable estimation to address endogeneity arising from reverse causality and omitted variable bias. Results reveal a statistically significant negative association between HPF contributions and discretionary spending: An RMB 1 increase in per capita HPF outlays corresponds to an RMB 0.843 decline in non-housing consumption. Strikingly, this crowd-out effect intensifies among households that refrain from utilizing HPF for residential purposes—exhibiting a marginal propensity to consume reduction of RMB 1.492 per yuan contributed. Heterogeneity analyses further demonstrate that low-income families, who exhibit lower HPF withdrawal probabilities, bear the inhibitory effect: Their non-housing expenditures decrease more relative to higher-income counterparts under equivalent contribution levels. In both the theoretical and empirical models, the results suggest that whether a household has an HPF does matter, but it is more important for the household to take advantage of its lending capacity to mitigate liquidity constraints, rather than merely participate in it.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100238,"journal":{"name":"China Economic Quarterly International","volume":"5 4","pages":"Pages 252-267"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146038218","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Institutional opening-up promotes local enterprises’ innovation: From the perspective of standards opening-up","authors":"Zhihao Yang , Junjie Hong","doi":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.11.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.11.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The participation of foreign-invested enterprises in the formulation of national standards is taken as an opportunity to identify standards opening-up, and the impact of standards opening-up on local firms' innovation is examined. It is found that standards opening-up promotes local firms' innovation, works through collaboration between Chinese and foreign firms, market competition, and information transmission mechanism, and influences upstream and downstream innovation along the industrial chain. In addition, standards opening-up promotes firms’ product upgrading and exporting, standards harmonization, and foreign investment stabilization. These findings explain the significance of steady expansion of institutional opening-up.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100238,"journal":{"name":"China Economic Quarterly International","volume":"5 3","pages":"Pages 200-211"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145528602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Administrative monopoly regulation and employee wages: Evidence from Fair competition review system in China","authors":"Pengcheng Jiang , Yujia Niu","doi":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.10.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.10.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Unlike previous studies examining how monopoly regulation policies affect enterprise behavior, this study uses the implementation of China's Fair Competition Review System as a quasi-natural experiment. This study uses data from non-financial listed enterprises and employs a difference-in-differences model to explore the impact and mechanism of administrative monopoly regulation on employee wages. The results show that administrative monopoly regulation can reduce average employee wages in administrative monopoly enterprises. This negative effect is more pronounced in firms with lower financing constraints and higher operating profits and in provinces with stronger government intervention. The economic mechanism test results indicate that reducing economic rent, curbing the labor scale, and increasing financing constraints are important mechanisms through which administrative monopoly regulation curbs excessively high compensation in these enterprises. Finally, this study finds that administrative monopoly regulation helps narrow the internal compensation gap of administrative monopoly enterprises.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100238,"journal":{"name":"China Economic Quarterly International","volume":"5 3","pages":"Pages 177-189"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145425329","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Impact of maternity leave policy reform on enterprise labor employment: Evidence from China matched employer-employee longitudinal survey data","authors":"Hong Liu , Meng Jiao , Chuliang Luo","doi":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.10.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.10.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study uses the China Matched Employer-Employee Longitudinal Survey data to evaluate the impact of maternity leave reform on enterprise labor employment. The results show that the reform does not affect overall labor employment but reduces the proportion of female employees, increasing labor costs for firms with female employees who have taken maternity leave. Mechanism analysis indicates that the reform leads to gender discrimination and cost-shifting effects, negatively impacting the formal employment, promotion, and wages of women of childbearing age, while increasing substitute labor costs for firms. Explicitly specifying that maternity leave allowances be paid by the maternity insurance fund helps alleviate these adverse effects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100238,"journal":{"name":"China Economic Quarterly International","volume":"5 3","pages":"Pages 161-176"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145277815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Uncertainty shocks, transnational innovation collaboration, and Chinese firm innovation","authors":"Liu Canlei , Jiang Ruixue , Jiang Li","doi":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.11.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.11.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Exploiting the quasi-natural experiment of the U.S.-China trade friction, we empirically examine the impact of uncertainty shocks on Chinese firms' overseas patent applications and transnational innovation collaboration. We find that uncertainty shocks suppress Chinese firms’ overseas innovation performance, resulting in a disruption effect on innovation collaboration with the U.S., but a diversion effect on collaborations with other countries, which is particularly evident in U.S. innovation partners, Europe, Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Japan, and South Korea. Heterogeneity analysis shows that these shocks disproportionately affect high-tech industries, industries with strong influence, and those with close U.S.-China innovation linkages.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100238,"journal":{"name":"China Economic Quarterly International","volume":"5 3","pages":"Pages 190-199"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145528476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Changes in labor share of China: A micro-level anatomy","authors":"Junsen Zhang, Qi Yu, Kang Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.05.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.05.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using comprehensive firm-level databases, we study the micro-basis of different trends in aggregate and individual labor shares in China's manufacturing sector during 1998–2016. We find that (1) redistributing value added towards the bottom of labor share distribution causes the decline of aggregate labor share; (2) the redistribution effect is driven by firms gradually increasing market share and reducing labor share; and (3) state-owned enterprises contribute significantly to the changes in aggregate labor share. The analysis of this paper enhances the understanding of the changes in China's labor share from the perspective of dynamic change of micro-firms.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100238,"journal":{"name":"China Economic Quarterly International","volume":"5 2","pages":"Pages 85-101"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144205582","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Age discrimination causes Unemployment: Evidence from the “35-year-Old phenomenon” in China","authors":"Wenlian Lin","doi":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.07.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.07.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Age discrimination in the labor market is a global issue, and in China, it becomes a pressing concern, particularly in the context of so-called “35-year-old crisis.” Departing from the literature that largely relies on resume experiments to identify age discrimination during hiring, I focus on China's labor market and use the 2015 census data to construct a regression discontinuity design for identifying age discrimination and its causal impact on unemployment. The results show that dismissal rates rise significantly immediately after workers exceed the age of 35, even after controlling for productivity-related factors. This rise is driven by negative age stereotypes held by employers and anchoring biases in their employment decisions, but with notable variations across regions, individuals, and time periods.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100238,"journal":{"name":"China Economic Quarterly International","volume":"5 2","pages":"Pages 147-159"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144653334","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}