Weizeng Sun

This paper investigates whether foreign direct investment (FDI) affects local divorce behavior through the transmission of marital norms. Combining source-country marital attitudes from the World Values Survey with firm-level FDI records aggregated to the city level, we construct an imported marital norms (IMN) index for 282 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2016. Using a consulate-distance-based IV strategy, we find that greater exposure to imported marital norms significantly increases city-level divorce rates—a one-standard-deviation increase in IMN index accounts for roughly 13.5% of the observed rise in divorce rates over this period. Mechanism tests show that imported norms foster more permissive individual attitudes toward non-traditional family and relationship arrangements. Furthermore, the effects are more pronounced when FDI originates from gender-equal countries and involves closer local interaction. These findings broaden our understanding of the local effects of foreign investment by showing that FDI shapes not only local economic outcomes but also social and family behaviors.

City attractiveness is an important driving force influencing the flow of human capital and businesses. This paper develops a measure of quality of life (QOL) and quality of business environment (QOB) for prefecture cities in China based on the Rosen-Roback spatial general equilibrium model. We find a positive correlation between QOL and QOB in Chinese cities. Cities with higher attractiveness index rankings are mainly located in the eastern coastal areas and provincial capitals in inland regions. Moreover, workers prefer cities with higher QOB while retired workers relatively favor cities with higher QOL. We also notice that the QOB of cities has a significant positive impact on immigration and business entry decisions. In addition, the correlation between QOL and QOB in the same city has been strengthening over time and the preferences of individuals and businesses for cities remain consistent across different years.

This paper investigates whether and how local government debt affects hightech firms' R&D investment and threshold-targeted R&D manipulation, in a policy environment where China's innovation subsidies are tied to R&D intensity thresholds. Using panel data of Chinese listed firms from 2008 to 2019, we find that an increase in local government debt significantly reduces high-tech firms' R&D investment, and raises their probability of R&D manipulation around the certification threshold. These effects are driven by the crowding-out of non-high-tech firms' R&D investment, rather than by higher credit costs or reduced subsidies, and this crowding-out induces peer effects that lead high-tech firms to cut real R&D and manipulate reported R&D around the threshold. Heterogeneity analyses show that the effects are stronger for technology-and capital-intensive firms, firms with concentrated ownership or high profitability, and cities with higher informatization, marketization, or firm density. Further evidence indicates that local debt governance and industrial development plans can mitigate these distortions. Our findings highlight the unintended consequences of threshold-based innovation incentives under fiscal pressure and offer policy implications for debt management and progressive incentive design.

Top high‐skilled professionals, such as academics, teachers, doctors, and engineers, play a critical role in driving localized innovation and economic growth. Although extensive research exists on international talent mobility, there is limited evidence on their intranational movement. This study closely analyses a large‐scale talent‐attraction policy implemented in Chinese cities to relocate top high‐skilled workers. Using a unique, hand‐collected dataset of CVs from all economics faculty members in China (2014 to 2018), we find that these policies significantly influence locational choices, favoring cities in more developed regions. Our findings urge local governments to reconsider the effectiveness of such policies in less developed areas and cities experiencing brain‐drain, and warn for increased economic inequalities in the long‐term.

This paper examines how housing markets in dense Chinese cities respond to flash flood risk, emphasizing vertical exposure in high-rise buildings and the layered nature of urban resilience. Using millions of rental and sales transactions with floor-level identifiers, we exploit within-building variation and exogenous extreme precipitation shocks to distinguish between the effects of physical damage and mobility disruption. A one–standard deviation increase in extreme precipitation (2.3 days) reduces rents by 1.0 percent for groundfloor units in low-lying areas, compared to 0.2 percent for higher floors. These effects are moderated by neighborhood and city-level drainage infrastructure, highlighting the importance of interconnected resilience systems. Household survey data further show that wealthier, better-educated, and urban hukou households are more likely to relocate to higher floors, while more vulnerable groups remain exposed. The findings underscore how building structure, infrastructure quality, and socioeconomic status jointly shape flood risk impacts in urban housing markets.

Increasing air pollution not only affects the population’s health but also changes its consumption structures and patterns. Using China Family Panel Studies, this study investigates the relationship between air pollution and household consumption. The findings reveal that household consumption is considerably affected by air pollution: One standard deviation rise of PM_2.5 concentration will decrease the household consumption by 8.7%. Moreover, this effect is irreversible in the short term. What is more, air pollution has significantly changed consumption structure and patterns. Heterogeneous analysis indicates that the influence of air pollution on consumption generates the so-called Matthew Effect, wherein medium and low-income and rural households are exposed to a greater negative effect. Mechanism tests indicate that air pollution may reduce household consumption through three channels: increase negative emotions, decrease outdoor activities, and depress future expectations. The conclusions drawn in this paper enrich our understanding of the economic impact caused by air pollution and bring important significance to the government in promoting the coordination and sustainable development of the environment and economy.

Environmental externalities of place‐based policy have generally been overlooked despite their welfare consequences. This paper studies the air‐pollution effect of development zones in urban China using a geo‐coded data set of 2720 counties from 1998 to 2016. By adopting the generalized difference‐in‐difference framework to resolve the problem of endogenous locational selection for place‐based policies, we find that development zones reduce ambient PM_2.5 concentration by around 1.8%, leading to a total social gain of $7.75 billion USD. The environmental benefit varies by the zone's dominant industry, geographical region, administrative affiliation and time of establishment. We further show that development zones are comparably cleaner due to the incentives of central and local governments, manifested by the desire to administratively promote development zones, the attempt to satisfy residential demands for higher quality‐of‐life cities, and the employment of the national environmental monitoring system.