1

　　Chan, Jimmy

　　Collusion Enforcement with Private Information and Private Monitoring

　　Journal of Economic Theory, 2015, 157, 188-211 (with Wenzhang Zhang).

　　摘要

　　This paper shows that a cartel that observes neither costs, prices, nor sales may still enforce a collusive agreement by tying each firm's continuation profit to the truncated current profits of the other firms. The mechanism applies to both price and quantity competition, and the main features are broadly consistent with common cartel practice identified by Harrington and Skrzypacz (2011).

　　2

　　Chan, Jimmy

　　“Approximate Efficiency in Repeated Games with Side-payments and Correlated Signals”, Theoretical Economics, 2016, 11, 53-87 (with Wenzhang Zhang).

　　摘要

　　Side-payments are common in many long-term relationships. We show that when players can exchange side-payments, approximate efficiency is achievable in any repeated game with private monitoring and communication, as long as the players can observe their own payoffs and are sufficiently patient, the efficient stage-game outcome is unique, and the signal distribution has full support. Unlike existing results in the literature, our result does not require deviations to be statistically detectable.

　　作者简介

　　3

　　Che, Jiahua

　　“Decentralization and Political Career Concerns”, Journal of Public Economics, 2017, 145, 201-210 (with Kim-Sau Chung and Yang K. Lu).

　　摘要

　　Abstract: Politicians' career paths often start at some subnational governments and end at the national one. Allocation of authorities among national and subnational governments affects (i) how tempting the prospects of taking national offices are, and hence how strong bureaucrats' political career concerns are, and (ii) whether the incentives generated by these political career concerns can be put into productive use at subnational governments. We illustrate this tradeoff in determining the optimal degree of decentralization using China as a case study. We also compare the equilibrium degree of decentralization in autocracy and in democracy.

　　作者简介

　　4

　　Chen, Shuoand Xiaohuan Lan

　　“There Will Be Killing: Collectivization and Death of Draft Animals”, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, forthcoming.

　　摘要

　　Abstract:The elimination of private property rights can lead to inefficient use of productive assets. In China’s collectivization movement from 1955 to 1957, instead of transferring draft animals to the ownership of the collectives, peasants slaughtered them to keep the meat and hide. By comparing 1,600 counties that launched the movement in different years, the difference-in-differences estimates suggest that the animal loss during the movement was 12 to 15 percent, or 7.4-9.5 million head. Grain output dropped by seven percent due to lower animal inputs and lower productivity.

　　5

　　Lan, Xiaohuan

　　“The Economics of Nationalism”, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2015, 7, 294-325 (with Ben Li).

　　作者简介

　　6

　　Fan, Haichao

　　“Domestic Creditor Rights and External Private Debt”,Economic Journal, forthcoming (with Xiang Gao).

　　摘要

　　Abstract: This paper unbundles institutions protecting domestic and foreign creditors’ rights. We estimate a negative relation between the degree of domestic rights protection and the external stock of private nonguaranteed debt in 85 developing countries. A supply-side explanation is that strong domestic protection supports reliable outside financing options for potential external debt defaulters; foreign investors anticipating this would tighten credit constraints ex ante. Then we formalise the argument in a private borrowing and default model, and show that centralisation is no longer necessarily welfare superior.

　　作者简介

　　7

　　Ju, Gaosheng

　　“Nonparametric Estimation of Structural Labor Supply and Exact Welfare Change under Nonconvex Piecewise-linear Budget Sets”, Journal of Econometrics, 2015, 188, 526-544 (with Li Gan and Xi Zhu).

　　摘要

　　Abstract: This paper contributes to the literature in both the estimation of structural labor supply and the calculation of exact welfare effects. It proposes a nonparametric method to estimate labor supply with nonconvex piecewise-linear budget sets. Different from previous literature such as Blomquist and Newey (2002) and Soest, Das, and Gong (2002), our method focuses on a nonparametric specification of an indirect utility function. We find that working with the indirect utility function is very useful in simultaneously addressing the labor supply problems with nonconvex budget sets, unobserved heterogeneity, labor nonparticipation, and measurement errors in working hours that previous literature was unable to account for. Further, two methods are developed to calculate exact welfare effects due to reforms of a nonlinear tax system. This paper also includes applications to the 1986 tax reform and 2001 Bush tax cut.

　　8

　　Ju, Gaosheng

　　“Identifying Latent Grouped Patterns in Panel Data Models with Interactive Fixed Effects”, Journal of Econometrics, forthcoming (with Liangjun Su).

　　摘要

　　Abstract: We consider the estimation of latent grouped patterns in dynamic panel data models with interactive fixed effects. We assume that the individual slope coefficients are homogeneous within a group and heterogeneous across groups but each individual’s group membership is unknown to the researcher. We consider penalized principal component (PPC) estimation by extending the penalized-profile-likelihood-based C-Lasso of Su, Shi, and Phillips (2016) to panel data models with cross section dependence. Given the correct number of groups, we show that the C-Lasso can achieve simultaneous classification and estimation in a single step and exhibit the desirable property of uniform classification consistency. The C-Lasso-based PPC estimators of the group-specific parameters also have the oracle property. BIC-type information criteria are proposed to choose the numbers of factors and groups consistently and to select the data-driven tuning parameter. Simulations are conducted to demonstrate the finite-sample performance of the proposed method. We apply our C-Lasso to study the persistence of housing prices in China’s large and medium-sized cities in the last decade and identify three groups.

　　作者简介

　　9

　　Li, Huailu

　　“Does Competition Eliminate Discrimination? Evidence from the Commercial Sex Market in Singapore”, Economic Journal, forthcoming (with Kevin Lang and Kaiwen Leong).

　　摘要

　　Abstract: The street sex worker market in Geylang, Singapore is highly competitive. Clients can search legally at negligible cost. Sex workers discriminate based on client ethnicity despite an excess supply of sex workers. Workers are more (less) likely to approach and ask a higher (lower) price of Caucasians (Bangladeshis), based on their perceived willingness to pay. They avoid Indians, set a significantly higher price and are less likely to reach an agreement with them, suggesting that Indians face taste discrimination. These findings remain even after controlling for prostitute fixed effects and are consistent with the workers' self-reported attitudes and beliefs.

　　作者简介

　　10

　　Li, Zhiyuan

　　“The Connection between Imported Intermediate Inputs and Exports: Evidence from Chinese Firms”, Journal of International Economics, 2016, 101, 86-101 (with Ling Feng and Deborah Swenson).

　　摘要

　　Abstract: We use Chinese manufacturing firm data to estimate the causal effect of increased imported intermediate input use on firm export outcomes. To account for the endogeneity of import decisions, we pursue an IV strategy that utilizes instruments for import costs connected to intermediate input import tariffs, exchange rates, and firm differences in fixed trade costs. We find that firms that expanded their intermediate input imports expanded the volume and scope of their exports. Further, we find that the benefit of imported inputs differed along a number of dimensions including initial trade status, import source country, export destination, firm ownership, and industry RD intensity. Although increased imports of intermediates boosted exports by all firms, we find that the effects were largest when they were purchased by private firms or firms that started out as non-traders. In addition, intermediate inputs from the higher-income G7 countries were especially helpful in facilitating firm exports to the presumably more-demanding G7 export markets. Taken together, these results suggest that product upgrading facilitated by technology or quality embedded in imported inputs helped Chinese firms to increase the scale and breadth of their participation in export markets.

　　11

　　Li, Zhiyuan

　　“Trade Policy Uncertainty and Exports: Evidence from China’s WTO Accession”, Journal of International Economics, forthcoming (with Ling Feng and Deborah Swenson).

　　摘要

　　Abstract: This paper studies how reduction in trade policy uncertainty affects firm export decisions. Using a firm-product level dataset on Chinese exports to the United States and the European Union in the years surrounding China’s WTO accession, we provide strong evidence that reduction in trade policy uncertainty simultaneously induced firm entries to and firm exits from export activity within fine product-level markets. In addition, we uncover accompanying changes in export product prices and quality that coincided with this reallocation: firms that provided higher quality products at lower prices entered the export market, while firms that had higher prices and provided lower quality products prior to the changes, exited. To explain the simultaneous export entries and exits, as well as the change in product export prices and quality induced by trade policy uncertainty changes, we provide a model of heterogeneous firms which incorporates trade policy uncertainty, tracing the effects of the changes in policy uncertainty on firm-level payoffs and the resulting selection effects which apply to new entrants and incumbents.

　　作者简介

　　12

　　Wang, Cheng

　　“Equilibrium Matching and Termination”, Journal of Monetary Economics, 2015, 76, 208-229 (with Youzhi Yang).

　　摘要

　　Abstract: In an equilibrium model of the labor market with moral hazard, jobs are dynamic contracts, job separations are terminations of optimal dynamic contracts. Transitions from unemployment to new jobs are modeled as a process of random matching and Nash bargaining. Non-employed workers make consumption and saving decisions as in a standard growth model, as well as whether or not to participate in the labor market. The stationary equilibrium is characterized. The model is then calibrated to the U.S. labor market to study quantitatively the worker flows and distributions, the compensation dynamics, and the effects of UI system.

　　13

　　Wang, Cheng

　　“Outside Opportunities and Termination”, Games and Economic Behavior, 2015, 91, 207-228 (with Youzhi Yang).

　　摘要

　　Abstract: We study a dynamic principal–agent relationship where a stochastic outside opportunity (offer) arises each period for the risk averse agent. Termination is costly, but it allows the agent to pursue the available outside opportunity and the principal to return to an external market to hire a new agent. The principal acts strategically with respect to the agent's outside offers and we show that it is optimal to terminate the current relationship if and only if the agent's outside offer is above a cutoff level. The optimal contract generates both voluntary and involuntary terminations. Severance compensation arises endogenously and we show that it may be paid only in involuntary terminations. Conditional on termination, the size of the optimal severance compensation depends positively on the agent's current compensation, but negatively on his outside offer. The optimal contract dictates an inverted-U relationship between compensation and the probability of termination.

　　作者简介

　　14

　　Wei, Xiao

　　“What Are Asset Demand Tests of Expected Utility Really Testing?”, Economic Journal, forthcoming (with Felix Kubler and Larry Selden).

　　摘要

　　Abstract: Assuming the classic contingent claim setting, a number of financial asset demand tests of Expected Utility have been developed and implemented in experimental settings. However the domain of preferences of these asset demand tests differ from the mixture space of distributions assumed in the traditional binary lottery laboratory tests of von Neumann-Morgenstern Expected Utility preferences. We derive new sets axioms that are necessary and sufficient for preferences over contingent claims to be representable by an Expected Utility function. We also indicate the additional axioms required to extend the representation to the more general case of preferences over risky prospects.

　　作者简介