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SCCEI Seminar Series (Spring 2024)


Friday, May 10, 2024 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way



The US-China Trade War: Quantify the Negative Shocks to Local Housing Markets and Land-Based Finance in Chinese Cities


China’s real estate market has experienced two decades of “golden age” with soaring housing prices ever since the housing marketization. Tax-sharing and land reforms eventually made city governments heavily rely on land sales (state-land use-right transfers) to generate fiscal revenues for expenditures; the so-called “land-based finance” or “land finance” sustained through self-fulfilling prophecy of housing price and land value appreciations supported by fast urbanization and economic growth. However, the US-China trade war started in 2018 and caused a drastically negative and exogenous shock to this feedback loop in Chinese cities, however. This research studies the trade war’s impacts on local housing markets and land-based finance. It constructs a shift-share measure transmitting the macro tariff changes to city-specific heterogeneous negative shocks. Analyses apply prefecture-city data spanning 2016-2019 and show that the tariffs were destructive to local housing markets and land finance besides hitting production. When cities experienced an extra percentage point (pp) of the weighted average tariff rate, transacted housing dropped by 3% and the prices fell by 1.2%, all else equal. The housing market tumbles deterred developers from buying state lands. The extra pp of the tariffs thus decreased the city government’s land-sale revenues by 7.6%. As Chinese cities faced, on average, a 1.62 pp increase in the average tariffs and, at the extreme, a 10.4 pp change within a year upon the trade war, impacts were substantial in hitting local housing markets and draining local public finance. Land-sale revenue declines between 12% to 79% were not uncommon. Further analysis reveals the more resilient cities in this trade-war were those with less severe overbuilding aka ghost-town phenomenon, a more diversified industrial base or export destinations, or a stronger tertiary sector. Overall, the US-China trade war could have more adversely impacted housing markets and local public finance in smaller cities than in big cities.

Please register for the event to receive email updates and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.



About the Speaker 
 

Siqi Zheng headshot

Dr. Siqi Zheng is the STL Champion Professor of Urban and Real Estate Sustainability at the Center for Real Estate, and Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is the faculty director of the MIT Center for Real Estate. She established MIT Sustainable Urbanization Lab in 2019, and MIT China Future City Lab in 2017, and is the faculty director of her Lab.Prof. Zheng was the former President of Asian Real Estate Society (2018-2019) and is on its Board now, and she is also on the Board of American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association (AREUEA). She is the Co-Editor of Journal of Regional Science, and Environmental and Resource Economics. She is also the Associated Editor of China Economic Review, and Journal of Economic Surveys, and is on the editorial board of Real Estate Economics, Journal of Housing Economics and Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. 

Prof. Zheng’s field of specialization is urban and environmental economics and policy, including sustainable urbanization, sustainable real estate, and urbanization in emerging economies. She published in many peer reviewed international journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Human Behaviour, and the Journal of Economic Literature, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Journal of Economic Geography, European Economic Review, Journal of Urban Economics, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Transportation Research Part A, Environment and Planning A, Ecological Economics, Journal of Regional Science, Real Estate Economics, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. A book she has co-authored with Matthew Kahn, Blue Skies over Beijing: Economic Growth and the Environment in China (Princeton University Press) was published in 2016. Dr. Zheng has completed or been undertaking research projects granted or entrusted by the World Bank, the MassCPR, MITEI, MIT Portugal, MIT MCSC,  the Asian Development Bank, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, among others. She won the MIT Frank E. Perkins Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising in 2022. She received her Ph.D. in urban development and real estate from Tsinghua University in 2005, and did her post-doc research at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Prior to coming to MIT, she was a professor and the director of Hang Lung Center for Real Estate at Tsinghua University, China.
 


A NOTE ON LOCATION

Please join us in-person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing.



Questions? Contact Xinmin Zhao at xinminzhao@stanford.edu
 


Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall

Siqi Zheng, Professor of Urban and Real Estate Sustainability, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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SCCEI Seminar Series (Winter 2024)



Friday, February 9, 2024 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way


What Makes a Desirable Spouse in China? New Evidence from a National Survey Experiment

 

Drawing on national survey experiment data from the 2021 Chinese General Social Survey, this research examines never-married people’s spouse preferences. The findings show how multiple characteristics of fictional marriage candidates – age, appearance, parents’ rural/urban status, education, income, and homeownership – shape men’s and women’s evaluation of the candidates’ desirability. They underscore a need to comprehensively assess the relative importance of multiple characteristics of a marriage candidate in shaping individuals’ spouse preferences. In addition, both men and women prefer a better-looking spouse with higher socioeconomic status and more resources. The findings suggest that widely observed hypergamous and homogamous unions do not reflect the preferences of both spouses, thereby cautioning against inferring individual preferences from assortative mating outcomes. Last, the findings show that individuals’ spouse preferences are embedded in and differ between China’s rural and urban marriage markets. This research demonstrates the importance of directly examining spouse preferences in clarifying the mechanisms of marital sorting.

Please register for the event to receive email updates and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.



About the Speaker 
 

Yue Qian headshot

Yue Qian is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia, Canada. She received her PhD in Sociology from the Ohio State University. Her research concerns inequality at the intersection of gender, family, and work in East Asia (China in particular) and North America. Currently, this work follows two lines of inquiry: (1) how mate selection and couple dynamics in intimate relationships reflect and shape gender inequality in the broader society; and (2) how social and mental health inequalities manifest and evolve in the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Qian has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles since 2014. Her work has appeared in top journals, such as Nature Human Behaviour, American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Journal of Marriage and Family, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, and Gender & Society.
 


A NOTE ON LOCATION

Please join us in-person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing.



Questions? Contact Xinmin Zhao at xinminzhao@stanford.edu
 


Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall

Yue Qian, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of British Columbia, Canada
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SCCEI Seminar Series (Winter 2024)



Friday, January 19, 2024 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way


The Law and Economics of Lawyers: Evidence from the Revolving Door in China’s Judicial System
 

This paper studies the roles of lawyers in shaping judicial and economic outcomes, exploiting the unique setting of “revolving-door” lawyers in China’s judicial system. By compiling the first comprehensive dataset covering the universes of judges, lawyers, law firms, litigants, and lawsuits in China from 2014 to 2022, we identify over 14,000 judges who left their positions and joined private law firms as lawyers, which accounts for 6.5% of all judges (2.6% of all lawyers) nationwide. We document four main empirical patterns. First, in both criminal and commercial lawsuits, these revolving-door lawyers enjoy significant advantages in securing favorable court decisions for their clients. Second, leveraging intra-lawyer variation in performances at home vs. away courts, we show that the premium of revolving door lawyers comes from both “know who” and “know how.” Third, revolving-door lawyers add significant values to their firms beyond their roles as frontline lawyers, by mentoring junior colleagues and attracting larger clients. Fourth, the revolving door lawyers, by joining larger law firms that disproportionately serve rich individuals and large corporates, could exacerbate existing socio-economic inequalities in China.

Please register for the event to receive email updates and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.



About the Speaker 
 

Shaoda Wang headshot

Shaoda Wang is an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He also serves as the Deputy Faculty Director at the Energy Policy Institute at UChicago, China center (EPIC-China). He is an applied economist with research interests in development economics, environmental economics, and political economy. His main research agenda aims at understanding the political economy of public policy, with a regional focus on China.

He holds a BA from Peking University, and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining Harris, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Economics and Energy Policy Institute (EPIC) at the University of Chicago.
 


A NOTE ON LOCATION

Please join us in-person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing.



Questions? Contact Xinmin Zhao at xinminzhao@stanford.edu
 


Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall

Shaoda Wang, Assistant Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago
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SCCEI Seminar Series (Fall 2023)



Friday, December 1, 2023 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way


Social Media and Government Responsiveness: Evidence from Vaccine Procurement in China


This research studies how public opinion on social media affected local governments' procurement of vaccines in China during 2014-2019. To establish causality, we exploit city-level variation in the eruption of online opinion on vaccine safety, instrumented by quasi-random early penetration of social media. We find that governments in cities exposed to stronger social media shocks increased the share of more transparent procurement and reduced home bias by procuring more vaccines from nonlocal producers. The effect is driven by posts expressing anti-government sentiment instead of posts containing investigative information and is larger in cities where local officials face higher top-down political pressure.

Please register for the event to receive email updates and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.


About the Speaker 
 

Yanhui Wu headshot

Yanhui Wu is an economist whose research concentrates on two areas: media economics and organizational economics. In media economics, he studies the political economy of mass media, particularly the underexplored subject of the media in China. In organizational economics, his research focuses on the organization of knowledge-intensive activities, particularly in the digital economy. Recently, he has worked with data scientists to develop new big data methods and apply them to the social sciences. His work has been published at top economics, management, and statistics journals, including the American Economic Review, Review of Economics and Statistics, Economic Journal, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Management Science, Organization Science, and the Journal of American Statistical Association.

Yanhui Wu is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Hong Kong and Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). Previously, he was Assistant Professor of Finance and Business Economics at the University of Southern California. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the London School of Economics in 2011. Prior to his doctoral study, he was an award-winning financial journalist in China.
 


A NOTE ON LOCATION

Please join us in-person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing.



Questions? Contact Xinmin Zhao at xinminzhao@stanford.edu
 


Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall

Yanhui Wu, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Hong Kong
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SCCEI Seminar Series (Fall 2023)



Friday, November 17, 2023 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way


How Digital Surveillance Justifies Massive Lockdowns in China During COVID-19
 

China’s draconian response to COVID-19 drew considerable criticism, with many suggesting that intense digital surveillance and harsh lockdowns triggered the unusual public dissent seen in China in late 2022. However, we argue that rather than backfiring, digital surveillance may have legitimized the government’s overreaction by making uncertain threats appear certain. We collected data on daily counts of lockdown communities and COVID cases from 2020 to 2023. Using a difference-in-differences approach with World Value Surveys (China 2012, 2018) and a nationwide online survey in 2023, we show that real-world lockdowns significantly reduced public perception of respect for human rights and trust in the government; however, these effects are moderated by the pervasiveness of COVID surveillance, proxied by cellphone usage. To establish causality, we use a survey experiment to show that digital surveillance indeed increases support for COVID lockdowns by making citizens more likely to believe they are close contacts. In contrast, surveillance cannot justify protest crackdowns. Our findings suggest that uncertainty in threats to public safety may foster support for state surveillance and coercion.

Please register for the event to receive email updates and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.


About the Speaker 
 

Xu Xu headshot

Xu Xu is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Xu studies digital authoritarianism, political repression, and the political economy of development, with a regional focus on China. He is currently working on a book entitled Authoritarian Control in the Age of Digital Surveillance. His other ongoing projects examine the political aspects of artificial intelligence, social media propaganda, public opinion on state repression, and state-society relations in China. His work has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, and the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, among other peer-reviewed journals.

He received his Ph.D. in political science from Pennsylvania State University in 2019, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University from 2020 to 2021.
 


A NOTE ON LOCATION

Please join us in-person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing.



Questions? Contact Xinmin Zhao at xinminzhao@stanford.edu
 


Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall

Xu Xu, Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University
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SCCEI Fall Seminar Series 



Friday, October 27, 2023 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way


Improving Regulation for Innovation: Evidence from China’s Pharmaceutical Industry


This study investigates the extent to which improved regulation can foster innovation by analyzing the impact of a major regulatory reform implemented in 2015 on the quantity and quality of innovation in China's pharmaceutical industry. Inspired by regulatory practices in the US, the reform aimed to address application backlogs and reduce administrative waiting time for new drug development. Using data at the drug and firm levels, we uncover three main findings: (1) drug categories experiencing improved approval times witnessed a surge in investigational new drug applications; (2) while there existed little improvement in within-drug innovation quality, the reform stimulated shifts in firm composition, leading to the influx of innovative new firm and enhancing aggregate-level drug innovativeness; and (3) the market recognized the improvement in drug innovation, evidenced by changes in stock prices following new drug registrations. Our findings highlight the important relationship between innovation quantity and quality, influenced by firm composition. They also suggest that emerging markets can enhance their innovation potential by adopting regulatory approaches akin to frontier countries.

Please register for the event to receive email updates and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.


About the Speaker 
 

Headshot of Dr. Ruixue Jia.

Ruixue Jia is an Associate Professor of Economics at the School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego. Her research interests lie at the intersection of economics, history, and politics. One area of her research examines elite formation and its influence, both in historical and contemporary contexts. Another focus of her work is uncovering the deep historical origins of economic development. In recent years, she has studied the ongoing transformation of China's manufacturing sector and expanded her research to encompass labor and technology-related issues.

Jia is affiliated with BREAD, CESifo, CEPR, and NBER. She also serves as the co-director of UCSD's China Data Lab, which aims to lead China studies into a new era where contextual knowledge is tested and corroborated by social science methods and data.


A NOTE ON LOCATION

Please join us in-person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing.



Questions? Contact Xinmin Zhao at xinminzhao@stanford.edu
 


Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall

Ruixue Jia, Associate Professor of Economics, UC San Diego
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SCCEI Seminar Series (Fall 2023)



Friday, October 13, 2023 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way


Quid Pro Quo, Knowledge Spillover, and Industrial Quality Upgrading: Evidence from the Chinese Auto Industry


This paper studies the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) via quid pro quo (technology for market access) in facilitating knowledge spillover and quality upgrades. Our context is the Chinese automobile industry, where foreign automakers are required to set up joint ventures (the quid) with domestic automakers in return for market access (the quo). The identification strategy exploits a unique dataset of detailed vehicle quality measures along multiple dimensions and relies on within-product quality variation across dimensions. We show that affiliated domestic automakers, compared to their nonaffiliated counterparts, adopt more similar quality strengths of their joint venture partners. Quid pro quo generates knowledge spillover to affiliated domestic automakers in addition to any industry-wide spillover. We rule out alternative explanations involving endogenous joint venture network formation, overlapping customer bases, or direct technology transfer via market transactions. Analyses leveraging additional micro datasets on worker flows and upstream suppliers demonstrate that labor mobility and supplier networks are important channels mediating knowledge spillover. Finally, we estimate an equilibrium model for the auto industry and quantify the impact of quid-pro-quo-induced  quality upgrading on domestic sales and profits. Quid pro quo improved the quality of affiliated domestic models by 3.8-12.7% and raised their sales (profit) by 0.9-3.9% (1.02-3.49%) relative to unrestricted FDI.

Please register for the event to receive email updates and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.


About the Speaker 
 

Jie Bai headshot

Jie Bai is an Assistant Professor in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Her research lies at the intersection between development, trade and industrial organization, focusing on microeconomic issues of firms in developing countries and emerging markets. Her past projects have examined firms’ incentive and ability to build a reputation for quality, collective reputational forces in export markets, the relationship between firm growth and corruption, and the impact of internal trade barriers among Chinese provinces on firms' export behavior. Her current ongoing work includes studying growth and reputation dynamics in online markets, technology transfer and knowledge spillovers among firms, and quality incentives and upgrading along supply chains. Professor Bai received her Ph.D. in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in June 2016 and spent one year at Microsoft Research New England prior to joining Harvard Kennedy School.


A NOTE ON LOCATION

Please join us in-person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing.



Questions? Contact Xinmin Zhao at xinminzhao@stanford.edu
 


Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall

Jie Bai, Assistant Professor in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
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SCCEI Seminar Series (Fall 2023)



Friday, September 29, 2023 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way


From Kins to Comrades: Rural Clan Society and the Rise of Communism in China


A key paradox of social revolutions is that despite their radical, modernist claims, success often requires effective mobilization of the peasantry, who are typically conservative and inward-looking. This article studies how traditional institutions of rural society can help movement entrepreneurs mobilize a modern revolution. Using newly digitized data on over 54,000 family genealogies and 500,000 revolutionary martyrs from 637 uprisings nationwide, we examine the role of clan and kinship networks during the incipient stage of the Chinese Communist Revolution (1927--1936). Triple-difference estimates suggest that local organizers mobilized significantly more co-clan members to join uprisings than non-co-clans. Furthermore, we provide evidence that the characteristics of organizers’ clans and the local clan structure are among the most decisive factors in predicting uprising occurrence and outcome. These findings highlight the subtle yet significant linkage between agrarian institutions and modern revolutions and offer a new perspective on the origin of Chinese communism.

Please register for the event to receive email updates and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.



About the Speaker  
 

Junyan Jiang headshot.

Junyan Jiang is the Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. Professor Jiang studies comparative politics and political economy, focusing on the politics of elites, organizations, and ideas. Some of his current research projects explore the formation and transformation of political elite networks in China, the interplay between formal rules and informal power in bureaucratic systems, and the dynamics of ideology in changing societies. His work has been published in American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Development Economics, and World Politics, among others. He has received the 2020 Gregory Luebbert Article Award for the best article in comparative politics from the American Political Science Association (APSA), and honorable mentions for the 2016 Sage Paper Award for the best paper presented at APSA Annual Meetings and the 2018 Mancur Olson Award for the best dissertation in political economy.



 

A NOTE ON LOCATION

Please join us in-person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing.



Questions? Contact Xinmin Zhao at xinminzhao@stanford.edu
 


Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall

Junyan Jiang, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Columbia University
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SCCEI Spring Seminar Series 


Wednesday, May 24, 2023 | 11:00 am -12:15 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way


 

Winning Hearts, Minds and Taste Buds? Telling the China Story Using Public Diplomacy 
 

China is becoming the first country since the USSR that could challenge the US-dominated world order and the state has spent a huge amount on public diplomacy to influence global opinions. A main goal of China’s public diplomacy efforts is to “tell the China story” well. We examine how “telling the China story” does in the Global South by examining the state-sponsored educational programs which enroll students from the Global South in Chinese universities. One aim is to nurture the next generation of political and business elites who would develop positive attitudes toward the Chinese economic and governance models. We detail China’s public diplomacy effort in this area and evaluate its impact on attitudes toward China’s economic and governance models using original surveys, interviews and generative AI language models' outputs. We further identify policy implications against the backdrop of the ongoing US-China competition.


About the Speaker  
 

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Yue Hou (final 2)

Yue Hou is the Janice and Julian Bers Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. This year she is a visiting scholar at  Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions (SCCEI). Yue Hou's research centers on the political economy of non-democracies with a regional focus on China. Yue Hou's research interests include how individual actors (e.g., citizens, firms) interact with the state and state agents that are not held accountable by elections, and how these interactions affect outcomes such as economic growth, government service, quality of institutions, and policy changes. 


Seminar Series Moderators 
 

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Headshot of Scott Rozelle

Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University.  For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Most recently, Rozelle's research focuses on the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition in China. In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premiere Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner. 
 

 
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Hongbin Li

Hongbin Li is the Co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Hongbin obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and joined the economics department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he became full professor in 2007. He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing 2007-2016 and was C.V. Starr Chair Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management. He founded the Chinese College Student Survey (CCSS) in 2009 and the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) in 2014.

Hongbin’s research has been focused on the transition and development of the Chinese economy, and the evidence-based research results have been both widely covered by media outlets and well read by policy makers around the world. He is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics.



 

A NOTE ON LOCATION

Please join us in-person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing.

Questions? Contact Garrette Grothe at gtgrothe@stanford.edu


Scott Rozelle
Hongbin Li

Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall

Yue Hou
Seminars
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SCCEI Spring Seminar Series 



Wednesday, May 10, 2023 | 11:00 am -12:15 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way


Conflicting Institutional Pressures and Corporate Digital Transformation in China 
 

Digital transformation has become a national policy in many countries. We examine in a centralized political system, how conflicting institutional pressures can affect corporate engagement in digital transformation of core manufacturing system. Given that a key benefit and consequence of digitalization is the replacement of low-skill labor, we propose that high pressure from unemployment can reduce the impact of proactive digital policies. Moreover, under high unemployment pressure, the government is likely to target firms that are less likely to lay off employees for digital transformation. As a result, ironically, firms that can potentially benefit more from digital transformation are less likely to digitalize. We test our argument with a sample of publicly listed manufacturing firms in China, and found strong support. Our study reveals decoupling in government action as well as in firm response, and contributes to a better understanding about the state influence on firms’ digital technologies in China.


About the Speaker  
    

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Rose Luo

Rose Luo is the Rudolf and Valeria Maag Professor in Entrepreneurship and Family Business. She is Academic Director of the top-ranked Tsinghua-INSEAD dual-degree EMBA program and Department Chair of Entrepreneurship at INSEAD. Before INSEAD, she served as a tenured faculty member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for 9 years. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology with a focus on organizational studies from Stanford University. Her research examines organizational responses to institutional pressures, corporate strategies in emerging markets, and family businesses. She has published numerous research studies in leading academic journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, Academy of Management Journal, and Strategic Management Journal, and serves as editorial board members in the journals.


Seminar Series Moderators  
 

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Headshot of Scott Rozelle

Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University.  For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Most recently, Rozelle's research focuses on the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition in China. In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premiere Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner. 
 

 
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Hongbin Li

Hongbin Li is the Co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Hongbin obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and joined the economics department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he became full professor in 2007. He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing 2007-2016 and was C.V. Starr Chair Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management. He founded the Chinese College Student Survey (CCSS) in 2009 and the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) in 2014.

Hongbin’s research has been focused on the transition and development of the Chinese economy, and the evidence-based research results have been both widely covered by media outlets and well read by policy makers around the world. He is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics.


Watch Recording

Questions? Contact Garrette Grothe at gtgrothe@stanford.edu


Scott Rozelle
Hongbin Li

Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall

Rose Luo
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