In this event on October 14 at 8 a.m. PT / 11 a.m. ET, the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) and the CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics present their latest Big Data China publication. The feature provides an overview of what the latest data-driven research says about the impact of trade with China on employment trends in the United States. It also provides a comparative analysis with other countries. The analysis shows that there are various interpretations on the topic with important policy implications.
Trustee Chair Director Scott Kennedy will host the event, which will include an introduction by Professor Scott Rozelle of Stanford University. Professors André Kurmann of Drexel University and Zhi Wang of George Mason University will discuss their research on the topic, followed by a discussion on the implications for U.S.-China relations and U.S. policy with distinguished panelists Anna Ashton of the Eurasia Group and Jeremie Waterman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
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FEATURING
Scott Rozelle Co-director at Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Jeremie Waterman President, China Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
André Kurmann Professor of Economics, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University
Anna Ashton Director, China Corporate Affairs and U.S.-China, Eurasia Group
Zhi Wang Senior Policy Fellow, Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University
Scott Kennedy Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics
"Can robot-driven advanced manufacturing be a panacea for China’s slowing economy? China sure hopes so." The Wire China author Isabella Borshoff quotes SCCEI co-directors Hongbin Li and Scott Rozelle in pursuit of the answer.
Nicholas (Nick) Bloom is the William Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University. His research focuses on working from home, management practices and uncertainty. He previously worked at the UK Treasury and McKinsey & Company.
He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the recipient of the Guggenheim and Sloan Fellowships, the Bernacer Prize, the Frisch Medal and a National Science Foundation Career Award. He has a BA from Cambridge, an MPhil from Oxford, and a PhD from University College London.
On the personal side he is English, living with his Scottish wife and American kids on Stanford campus, in a multi-accented English household.
Joseph Piotroski is the Robert K. Jaedicke Professor of Accounting at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and a Senior Fellow at the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER). Professor Piotroski earned his PhD from the University of Michigan in 1999, an MBA from Indiana University in 1994, a BS in Accounting from the University of Illinois in 1989, and worked as a tax consultant for Coopers and Lybrand in Chicago. His research focuses on corporate transparency, governance, and regulation in a global context. His current research examines the impact of legal, political, and regulatory forces on capital market behavior and corporate decision-making, most notably in China and other emerging economies. His research has been published in scholarly journals in the areas of accounting, finance, and economics, and his research on value investing has been frequently cited in the popular press and is widely used in practice.
"By 2016, China had the world’s largest stock of operational robots. This was a massive increase from 2010, when it trailed Japan, the United States, Germany, and South Korea. To learn why and how China is automating so rapidly, [Erin Slawson] spoke with Dr. Hongbin Li, Co-Director of the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI)."
On November 15, 2021, the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) launched its new impact initiative: the SCCEI China Briefs. The briefs translate data-driven social science research into accessible insights for those interested in China and U.S.-China relations. Released twice a month, the briefs cover timely issues that inform policy and advance public understanding of China and its role on the global stage.
This initiative targets one of SCCEI’s primary objectives: to inform public debates on U.S.-China relations with empirically-driven social science research.
This initiative targets one of SCCEI’s primary objectives: to inform public debates on U.S.-China relations with empirically-driven social science research.
On Monday, SCCEI released its first three China Briefs spotlighting findings central to China’s economy, U.S.-China trade competition, and their implications for U.S.-China relations:
In “Did ‘China Shock’ Cause Widespread Job Losses in the U.S.?” Stanford's own Nicholas Bloom and his co-authors find compelling evidence that import competition from China did not, in fact, cause aggregate employment loss in the U.S. – a finding that contradicts prevailing views. Read our brief for a fuller picture of how “China shock” impacted U.S. employment dynamics and how this might impact regional inequality and political polarization in the U.S.
Only a handful of countries have escaped the middle-income trap since 1960. In “Invisible China: Hundreds of Millions of Rural Unemployed May Slow China’s Growth,” SCCEI’s co-director Scott Rozelle finds that approximately 70% of China’s labor force – 500 million people – concentrated in rural areas do not have a high school education. Our SCCEI China Brief sheds light on why these statistics matter – not only for China, but for the rest of the world.
In “Rise of Robots in China,” SCCEI’s co-director Hongbin Li presents strong data revealing China’s global leadership in the use of industrial robots. What is driving this relentless growth of automation in China? What future trends and implications can we glean from China’s use and production of robots? Read our SCCEI China Brief to find out more.
The SCCEI China Briefs are short features that translate top-quality academic research into evidence-based insights for those interested in China and U.S.-China relations. Released twice a month, the briefs will cover timely issues that inform policy and advance the public understanding of China and its role on the global stage.
Scott Rozelle discusses the impact of COVID-19 control measures on employment and education in rural China during a presentation given to the EURICS/IFRAE/Universite de Liege webinar series.
In 2021, over 10.78 million Chinese high school students took the college entrance exam (Gaokao): a historical high. While the Gaokao is the most important talent selection channel in China, many questions about the Gaokao system remain unanswered. Does the exam measure ability? What type of ability? Does the exam score make a difference for a young person’s future career? Are higher-score individuals more likely to work in government, become entrepreneurs, or earn higher wages?
It is impossible to provide comprehensive answers to all of these questions in a single study, but here, we provide partial answers to some of these questions. Our results come from a recent study, motivated by a theoretical literature on talent allocation (e.g., Baumol 1990; Murphy, Shleifer and Vishny 1991; Acemoglu 1995). This literature has long noted that talent is general and can be used in both the entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial sectors, and that its allocation depends on the reward structure of a society. While this important theory of talent allocation has been developed for three decades, few empirical studies have directly tested it due to data challenges.
In Bai, Jia, Li and Wang (2021), we study whether talented Chinese are more or less likely to become entrepreneurs. Empirically, we link the universe of college admission records in 1999–2003 with the universe of Chinese firms and their owners, and then use a random sample of 20% of the linked data to examine who have become entrepreneurs and how successful their firms are. In total, this yields a sample of 1.8 million college graduates who created approximately 170,000 firms by 2015. We supplement this linked data with a large survey of Chinese college graduates that we conducted during 2010–2015 to study waged jobs. We use students’ Gaokao score as a proxy for talent and validate our measure with data.
Research design: within-college comparison
We focus on within-college analyses -- comparing individuals in their mid-30s with others in their cohort who graduated from the same college -- for conceptual and empirical reasons. Conceptually, the within-college comparison helps to control for the confounding factors of college reputation and network. Empirically, we find that most of the variation in firm creation comes from within colleges. For instance, although college fixed effects can explain up to 19% of the variation in wages of paid jobs (in our survey data), the effects can account for only 1.2% of the variation in firm creation. In addition, we find that the college fixed effects can explain only 46% of the variation in exam scores, leaving the majority of the variation to occur within colleges. The wide variation in scores within a college is driven by considerable uncertainty and political economy factors (particularly provincial quotas) in the college admission process. In addition, because Gaokao scores are comparable only for students from the same province and year, as well as the same academic track (social science vs. natural science), we isolate province-year-track fixed effects in our analyses.
We control for a set of individuals’ personal characteristics, which include gender, Hukou (rural vs. urban), high school quality, birth county’s GDP per capita, and age fixed effects. Although we do not have a specific measure of socioeconomic status (such as parental income), it is reasonable to assume that those from better high schools and wealthier counties have higher socioeconomic status. Within colleges, higher socioeconomic status is positively associated with exam scores.
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Gaokao, Ability, and Occupation Choice is published in full on VoxChina.org
Hongbin Li's research finds that "In China, the college entrance exam score is predictive for both firm success and wage-job success in the future, yet higher-score individuals are less likely to create firms."
This paper examines the correlation between cognitive ability and firm creation. Drawing on administrative college admissions data and firm registration records in China, we investigate who had created firms by their mid-30s. We find a clear pattern of entrepreneurial reluctance: Given the same backgrounds, individuals with higher college entrance exam scores are less likely to create firms. Through an exploration of firm performance, alternative career trajectories, and variations across regions, we propose an explanation: The ability represented by exam scores is useful across occupations, yet higher-scoring individuals are attracted to waged jobs, particularly those of the state sector.
USA vs China: A New Cold War? Great Power Relations and Competition in the 21st Century
Thirty years ago, the Cold War ended. Today, great power competition is back – or so it seems – with many describing our present era as a “New Cold War” between the United States and China (and Russia). But is this label an illuminating or distorting analogy? More importantly, what should the U.S. do to meet the challengers of great power competition in the 21st century?
In analyzing contemporary relations, we must trace the historical origins of the U.S.-China relationship, then assess the similarities and differences between the Cold War and U.S.-China relations today along dimensions such as power, ideology, and multilateralism, in order to effectively devise unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral policy prescriptions for U.S. policymakers.
This Stanford alumni event featured Stanford professor Michael McFaul, director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He was joined by professor Hongbin Li, co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy, who moderated a discussion about the major themes of the research.
Watch the event recording:
About the Speakers:
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Michael McFaul is Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995.
Dr. McFaul also is as an International Affairs Analyst for NBC News and a columnist for The Washington Post. He served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).
He has authored several books, most recently the New York Times bestseller From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia. Earlier books include Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; Transitions To Democracy: A Comparative Perspective (eds. with Kathryn Stoner); Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (with James Goldgeier); and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.
His current research interests include American foreign policy, great power relations, and the relationship between democracy and development. Dr. McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991.
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Hongbin Liis the Co-Director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). 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 also founded and served as the Executive Associate Director of the China Social and Economic Data Center at Tsinghua University. 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.
