Research

Recent Publications

• Barriers to Entry and Regional Growth in China. Review of Economic Studies, with Gueorgui Kamborouv and Kjetil Storesletten (Forthcoming).
• Land Security and Mobility Frictions. Quarterly Journal of Economics, with Tasso Adamopoulus, Chaoran Chen, Diego Restuccia and Xiaoyun Wei, 2024.
• Opening Up in the 21st Century: A Quantitative Accounting of Chinese Export Growth. Journal of International Economics, with Kevin Lim, 2024.
• Recent Productivity Trends in China: Evidence from Macro- and Firm-Level Data. China: An International Journal, with J. Litwack, E. Mileva, L. Wang, Y. Zhang, and L. Zhao, 2022.
• Misallocation, Selection and Productivity: A Quantitative Analysis with Micro Data from China. Econometrica, with Tasso Adamopoulos, J. Leight and Diego Restuccia, 2022.
• Ownership and Productivity in Vertically Integrated Firms: Evidence from the Chinese Steel Industry, with Feitao Jiang, Yao Luo and Yingjun Su, forthcoming, Review of Economics and Statistics.
• China’s Great Boom as a Historical Process with Thomas G. Rawski, 2020.
• Market constraints, misallocation and productivity in Vietnam agriculture with Stephen Ayerst and Diego Restuccia, 2020.
• Policy, Regulation and Innovation in China’s Electricity and Telecom Industries with Thomas Rawski (Cambridge University Press), 2019.
• Does Investment in National Highways Help or Hurt Hinterland City Growth with Nathaniel Baum-Snow, J. Vernon Henderson, Matthew A.Turner, Qinghua Zhang, Journal of Urban Economics, 2018.
• WTO Accession and Performance of Chinese Manufacturing Firms with Johannes Van Biesebroeck, Luhang Wang and Yifan Zhang (American Economic Review), 2017.
• Growth with equity: income inequality in Vietnam, 2002–14 with Dwayne Benjamin and Brian McCaig, Journal of Income Inequality, 2017.
• Industrialization in China with Debin Ma and Thomas Rawski, in The Spread of Modern Industry to the Periphery since 1871, Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson, editors, Oxford University Press, 2017.
• Tariffs and the Organization of Trade in China with Peter Morrow, Journal of International Economics, 2017.
• Roads, Railroads and Decentralization of Chinese Cities with Nathanial Baum-Snow, Vernon Henderson, Matthew Turner, and Qinghua Zhang, Review of Economics and Statistics, 2016.
• Large Shocks and Small Changes in the Marriage Market for Famine Born Cohorts in China, with Aloysius Siow and Carl Vogel, Journal of the European Economic Association, 2016.

Selected Other Publications

• Policy Perspectives from the Bottom Up: What Do Firm-level Data Tell Us China Needs to Do? Prepared for the 2015 Asia Economic Policy Conference, Policy Challenges in a Diverging Global Economy, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, 2015.
• The Evolution of Income Inequality in Rural China, with Dwayne Benjamin, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2005.
• Banks and Enterprise Privatization in China, with Hongbin Li and Joanne Roberts,  The Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, V21 N 2, 2005.
• Local Government Behavior and Property Right Formation in Rural China, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, with Scott Rozelle and Matthew A. Turner, 2004.
• Bank discrimination in transition economies: ideology, information, or incentives?, with Hongbin Li, Canadian Journal of Economics, 2003.
• Property Rights, labour markets, and efficiency in a transition economy: the case of rural China, with Dwayne Benjamin, Journal of Comparative Economics 31,  2002.
• Redistribution in a Decentralized Economy: Growth and Inflation in China under Reform, with Xiaodong Zhu, Journal of Political Economy, 2000.
• Constructing a Ladder For Growth: Policy, Markets and Industrial Upgrading, with Eric Thun, World Development, 2016.
• Compensating for Unequal Parental Investments in Schooling with Aloysius Siow and Hui Wang. Journal of Population and Economics, 2015. (Winner of the Kuznets Award for Best Paper in Journal of Population Economics, 2015).
• Factor Market Distortions Across Time, Space and Sectors in China with Trevor Tombe, Xiaodong Zhu. Review of Economic Dynamics, 2013.
• The Rise of China, in The Encyclopedia of Economic History, Routledge Publishing, 2013.
• Creative Accounting or Creative Destruction: Firm Level Productivity Growth in Chinese Manufacturing with Johannes Van Biesebroeck, Yifan Zhang. Journal of Development Economics, 2012.
• Credit, Incentives, and Reputation: A Hedonic Analysis of Contractual Wage Profiles, with Arthur J. Hosios, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 104, No. 6, 1996.
• Interpreting New Evidence About China and U.S. Silver Purchases, with Thomas J. Sargent, Journal  of Monetary Economics 23, 1989.
• Chinese Agriculture and the International Economy, 1870-1930s: A Reassessment, Explorations  In  Economic  History  22, 1985.

Papers Under Submission and Working Papers

• The Anatomy of Chinese Innovation: Patent Quality and Ownership, with Philip Boeing, R. Dai, Kevin Lim, and Bettina Peters, 2024.
• The Anatomy of China’s State Owned-Enterprises. Revise and Resubmit, Journal of Comparative Economics. with Ruochen Dai and Xiaobo Zhang, 2024.
• Serial Entrepreneurship in China, Revise and Resubmit, AEJ:Macro, with Ruochen Dai, Gueorgui Kambourov, Kjetil Storesletten and Xiaobo Zhang, 2024.
• Distortions, Producer Dynamics, and Aggregate Productivity: A General Equilibrium Analysis, with Stephen Ayerst and Diego Restuccia, 2023.
• Where Has all the Dynamism Gone? Productivity Growth in China’s Manufacturing Sector, 1998-2013. Revise and Resubmit, Journal of Development Economics, with Luhang Wang, Johannes Von Biesebroeck, and Yifan Zhang, 2023.