2021-09-15

主讲人: Lixin Tang, Jinan University

主题: National Sentiments in the US-China Trade War: The View from Box-Office in China

时间地点: 2:00-3:30 pm，明德主楼734

摘要：We study the effects of the US-China trade war on national sentiments towards the United States in China. We focus on the motion pictures industry in China, a sector not affected by trade war tariffs, over 2017-2019. We find that a city's exposure to US tariffs has significant adverse effects on US films' box office performance. The loss in box office revenue for US films due to the trade war is estimated at 2.9 billion yuan (US$ 426 million).  In contrast, exposure to US tariffs is associated with an improvement in the box office performance of Chinese films. We conduct several checks to rule out supply-side explanations. The effects of tariff exposure on box office performance of US films are more pronounced for drama, romance, and comedy films and less significant for sci-fi, fantasy and animation films. We interpret the deterioration in US films' box office performance as a consequence of a negative shift in national sentiments towards the US.

2021-09-29

主讲人: Xinzheng Shi, Tsinghua University

主题: Does Matching Uncertainty Reduce Marital Payoff: Evidence from China

时间地点: 2:00-3:30 pm，明德主楼729

摘要：How does noise in the information cue to the potential spousal quality affect marriage outcomes? We show in a simple two-dimensional matching model, a noisier cue to one feature decreases positive sorting on this feature and does the opposite on other features. While increasing noise reduces overall expected utility, the effect is asym- metric between genders and among people with different features. Our test explores the repeal of the mandatory premarital health examination (PHE) in China – a change making the health cue noisier. We find that this change reduced post-marital subjec- tive well-being, particularly for the females and the healthier. A major channel for the deterioration is the decline in child health, which is associated with the decrease in sorting by health.

2021-10-20

主讲人: Shuo Chen, Fudan University (Cancelled)

主题: Keju, Institutional Committment, and the Great Divergence (with Xinyu Fan, and Zhichen Huang)

时间地点: 3:30-5:00 pm，明德主楼729

摘要：We argue that the Keju system – merit-based recruitment exams routinely selected the finest from the commoners into the bureaucracy – was an institutional origin rooted behind the great (economic) divergence between China and the West in the past two centuries. Eliciting from 3217 volumes, 46 million words of records in the Twenty-four Histories, we recover the complete personal and career records of 8860 bureaucrats from 578 BCE to 1676. Utilizing a difference-in-differences approach, we present two main findings: 1. Grass-root elites without power bases increasingly entered and occupied the central stage of the power colosseum, replacing the hereditary and inter-connected noble families. 2. However, the fates of grass-root elites in the Keju era fell heavily in the hands of the rulers: they careers were more often disrupted by rulers’ discretion, and such tendency was more significant in positions that were easier to accumulate authority. Through the findings, the paper highlights the institutionalization of an effective bureaucratic hierarchy, investigates the fade-away of the power-sharing commitment between rulers and social elites, and provides an Oriental version of the Game of Thrones, where the imperial rule was prolonged and strengthened at the cost of competition, innovation, and prosperity in growth.

2021-12-15

主讲人: Zenan Wu, School of Economics, Peking University

主题: Polluted Games: Air Pollution and Competitive Performance in Tournaments

时间地点: 2:00-3:30 pm，明德主楼729

摘要：We investigate the impact of air pollution on competitive performance and equilibrium outcomes in a tournament setting. We first consider a stylized tournament and model air pollution as an increase in a contestant's marginal effort cost. We show that air pollution reduces the favorite's effort unambiguously, whereas its impact on the underdog's incentive is indeterminate due to the strategic interactions between contestants. Further, air pollution could lead to either a more elitist distributional outcome---i.e., the underdog's equilibrium winning probability decreases---or the opposite. In the empirical investigation, we exploit the hourly variation in levels of air pollution and a comprehensive dataset of performance metrics for professional eSports tournaments. We find robust evidence that an increase in the level of air pollution has a significantly negative effect on the weaker team's performance and winning probability, and has a positive effect on the stronger team, thus widening the performance gap between teams. Our finding has broader implications on the average and distributional impact of air pollution on economic outcomes in a strategic environment.

2021-12-22

主讲人: Bo Li, Tsinghua PBCSF

主题: The Political Economy of Anti-Bribery Enforcement (Joint with Lauren H. Cohen)

时间地点: 2:00-3:30 pm，明德主楼734

摘要：This paper investigates the influence of political motivations on the regulatory enforcement of foreign bribery. Using case-level data from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Department of Justice, we show discretion in the timing of enforcement that in the years leading to a Senate election, the probability of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement actions against foreign firms located in that state increase significantly, spiking 23%, but not U.S. firms located in the same states. We use exogenous variation in the timing and geographic location of U.S. Congressional elections to establish identification of our effects at the geographic level. Larger discretion occurs in regions where foreign firms compete intensively with in-state firms, operate in locally important industries, and when Senators serve as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The cases brought against these foreign firms just prior to elections have the markers of being weaker cases. In response to strategic timing in enforcement, firms reallocate business segments and sales away from perceived corrupt countries.

2021-05-26

主讲人: YiKai Wang, University of Essex

主题: Worker Productivity during Lockdown and Working from Home: Evidence from Self-Reports

时间地点: 2:00-3:30 pm，明德主楼734

腾讯会议: 527 222 370 (密码0526）

2021-06-10

主讲人: Yan Bai, University of Rochester

主题: Misallocation under Trade Liberlization

时间地点: 9:00-10:30 AM，明德主楼729

Zoom Meeting ID: 997 0242 8258

2020-09-23

主讲人: 焦阳，复旦大学泛海国际金融学院助理教授

主题: 生产在知识经济中的地理分解

时间地点: 9月23日，2:00-3:30 pm，明德商学院0307

2020-10-21

主讲人: 董丰，清华大学经济管理学院副教授

主题: Lemon Cycle

时间地点: 10月21日，2:00-3:30 pm，明德主楼729

2020-10-28

主讲人: 刘烁，北京大学光华管理学院助理教授

主题: Sad Scales and Happy Times: Eliciting Cardinal Information from Ordered Response Data

时间地点: 10月28日，2:00-3:30 pm，明德主楼729

2020-11-18

主讲人: 莫家伟，北京大学经济学院助理教授

主题: Quantifying Network Advantage 

时间地点: 11月18日，2:00-3:30 pm，明德主楼729