Suqin Ge, Yu Zhou Social Distancing, Labor Market Outcomes, and Job Characteristics in the COVID-19 Pandemic DOI: 10.3868/s060-011-020-0021-3
Abstract: This paper investigates the role of job characteristics on an individual’s decisions to follow social distancing policies, work, and apply for unemployment insurance in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic. We use data that track millions of mobile devices and their daily movements across physical locations to measure whether the mobile devices leave their homes, or part-time or full-time at work that day, and we also collect data on weekly unemployment insurance claims. We find that the presence of jobs with high work-from-home capacity in a region increases the ability of people to follow social distancing policies and decreases their unemployment risk, whereas the presence of jobs with high physical proximity decreases the incidences of following social distancing policies and unemployment and increases the incidence of work during the pandemic. These heterogeneous responses based on local job characteristics persist even conditional on a broad set of demographic and socioeconomic variables.
Xiaobo He, Fang Xiao Unintended Consequences of Lockdowns: Evidence from Domestic Helpers in Urban China DOI: 10.3868/s060-011-020-0022-0
Abstract: Using a novel dataset containing information of over 40 thousand Chinese domestic helpers registered at a leading professional website during November 2019 and June 2020, this paper addresses the reactions of domestic helpers to the Wuhan (Hubei Province) lockdown occurred on January 23, 2020. It finds a decline pattern of short-term labor supply of domestic helpers across 11 Chinese major cities, and shows this increases the expected monthly wage of domestic helpers in these cities. More importantly, using a difference-in-differences model, this paper provides some evidence on the existence of labor market discrimination against domestic helpers born in Hubei Province due to employers’ fears of infection.
Yi Che, Weiqiang Liu, Yan Zhang, Lin Zhao China’s Exports during the Global Pandemic Recession DOI: 10.3868/s060-011-020-0023-7
Abstract: The global COVID-19 pandemic has caused huge economic contraction in most countries, including all of China's major trading partners. Using a difference-in-differences model, this paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on China’s monthly exports from January 2019 to May 2020. We find strong and robust evidence that China’s exports to countries at high risk from the pandemic have experienced a larger decline than exports to low-risk countries after the onset of the pandemic, with the prices of exports increasing significantly. Furthermore, a triple differences model shows heterogeneous effects across different industries and goods. Chinese industries located upstream in global value chains are more vulnerable than those located downstream. Industries with high labor and contract intensity (proxies for processing trade) have experienced greater declines than other industries. Exports of goods with high import elasticity of substitution have experienced higher price and moderate volume losses due to the pandemic.
Yun Wang, Mingyang Yan Past Experiences, Personality Traits, and Risk Aversion: Evidence from Individual Risk Preferences during the COVID-19 Pandemic DOI: 10.3868/s060-011-020-0024-4
Abstract: Individuals’ risk attitudes play roles in economic decision making and policy evaluations, particularly in the midst of the unprecedented uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we adopt the multiple-price-list elicitation method with real money incentives (Holt and Laury, 2002) to precisely measure individuals’ risk preferences at different stakes, and the extent to which they are affected by individuals’ experienced personal and social shocks following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in China. We find that subjects who had previously experienced negative shocks in their personal lives exhibit higher degrees of risk aversion at medium and large payment stakes, but became more risk-loving at very small payment stake. Previous exposure to social shock or natural disasters has no significant effect on subjects’ risk preferences. Within our sample, COVID-19 has no significant impact on risk preferences, and the pandemic is more likely to be regarded as a social shock by our subjects. The result may indicate that the impact of the pandemic on individuals’ risk preferences is not as influential as expected, unless the individual’s personal life has been hit directly by the pandemic. Our finding has important behavioral and policy implications.
Qichun He The COVID-19 Pandemic in a Monetary Schumpeterian Model DOI: 10.3868/s060-011-020-0025-1
Abstract: In this paper, we investigate how the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic— the increase in the probability of death, following Blanchard and Fischer (1989)— may affect growth and welfare in a scale-invariant R&D-based Schumpeterian model. Without money, the increase in the probability of death has no effect on long-run growth and a negative effect on welfare. By contrast, when money is introduced via the cash-in-advance constraint on consumption, the increase in the probability of death decreases long-run growth and welfare under elastic labor supply. Calibration shows that the quantitative effect of an increase in the probability of death on welfare is much larger compared to that on growth.
Yuqing Xing How the iPhone Widens the US Trade Deficit with China: the Case of the iPhone X DOI: 10.3868/s060-011-020-0026-8
Abstract：Through an examination of the case of the iPhone X, this paper demonstrates that Chinese companies involved in production of the iPhone X have moved up that global value chain. According to the bill of materials, those companies contributed 25.4% of the value added of the iPhone X. About 45% of the value added of the iPhone X originated from Japan, Korean and other economies. The iPhone trade remains a significant element of the statistical distortion of the Sino-US bilateral trade imbalance. In terms of gross value, the import of one iPhone X results in a $332.75 trade deficit for the US; measured in terms of value added, the deficit is a mere $104. Depreciation of the yuan has very limited power to counterbalance the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration because the foreign value added embedded in Chinese exports is 33.9% on average. Simulation results show that to counterbalance a 25% tariff, the yuan would have to depreciate by 43.3% against the US dollar on average; and to fully compensate for a 25% tariff burden on the iPhone X, a 400% depreciation of the yuan would be necessary. Hedging the risk of the punitive US tariffs by depreciation of the yuan is mission impossible.
Shangao Wang, Xu Tian, Yingheng Zhou The Trade-off between Quantity and Quality in Family Fertility Decision: Evidence from the Family Planning Policy in China
Abstract: Based on the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) 2006 and 2008 data, this paper estimates the influence of the family planning policy on the qualitative development of children using education attainment and individual income of only children versus children with siblings as parameters. Our results show that: (1) only children are better-educated than their counterparts; (2) only children earn higher income in comparison to their counterparts; (3) the income and education gaps between girls with and without siblings are greater than the boys’; (4) the education gaps between only children and children with siblings are greater for those born in the 1970s, but the income difference between only children and children with siblings is only significant for those born in the 1980s; (5) the income and education gaps between only child and child with siblings are higher in urban regions. Results indicate that families with only one child devoted more resources in children’s quality under the family planning policy, which is consistent with the “quantity and quality trade-off” theory proposed by Gary Becker.
Karl-Gustaf Löfgren, Chuan-Zhong Li Envelope Theorems in Economics: Historical Development and Modern Cost-Benefit Applications
Abstract: This paper reviews some historical development and modern applications of the envelope theorems in economics from a static to a dynamic context. First, we show how the static version of the theorem surfaced in economics, which had eventually lead to the well-known Shephard’s lemma in microeconomics. Second, we present its dynamic version in terms of the classical calculus of variations and optimal control theory via the optimized Hamiltonian function. Third, we show some applications of the theorem for deriving dynamic cost-benefit rules with special reference to environmental projects involving the green or comprehensive net national product (CNNP). Finally, we illustrate briefly how to extend the cost-benefit rules to a stochastic economic growth setting. |
