We construct a Housing Purchase Intention Index (HPII) using the Baidu Search Index, which captures online search behavior directly reflecting households’ housing purchase intentions. We assess the predictive power of the HPII for the growth rate of housing transaction volume and further examine factors influencing housing purchase intention. The results show that the HPII has significant predictive ability and enhances real-time forecasting accuracy, highlighting the role of search behavior as a behavioral signal in the housing market. We also find that housing purchase intention is shaped by policy, economic, demographic, and supply factors. Specifically, purchase restriction policies exhibit an inverted U-shaped effect; moderate mortgage-rate hikes dampen purchase intention, while persistent increases may induce anticipatory buying. In addition, rising wages, increasing population concentration, and expanded residential land supply consistently strengthen housing purchase intention. These findings provide new behavioral evidence on the drivers of housing demand and underscore the value of search-based indicators for understanding household decision-making in the real estate market.

This paper examines why tax incentives fail to stimulate participation in China's third-pillar commercial pension insurance, emphasizing the role of rational inattention. Using household survey data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) spanning 2014-2022 and a difference-in-differences-in-differences (DDD) design, we find that pilot policy generated a statistically insignificant average effect on participation, with rational inattention - proxied by financial literacy - explaining much of its ineffectiveness. We develop a dynamic consumption-portfolio model featuring costly information acquisition, and then resolve limitations of standard models through a dynamic framework with distinct savings channels and policy-focused rational inattention. The models show that rational inattention distorts perceptions of tax benefits and wage growth, raising participation costs, while multiple savings channels dilute incentives. Only households with higher financial literacy substantially respond to the policy. Our results reveal how cognitive frictions undermine pension reform and offer implications for designing behaviorally-informed retirement schemes.

Previousresearch on internal mobility has neglected the role of local identity contrary to studies analyzing international migration. Examining social identity and labor market outcomes in China, the country with the largest internal mobility in the world, closes the gap. Instrumental variable estimation and careful robustness checks suggest that identifying as local associates with higher migrants’ hourly wages and lower hours worked, although monthly earnings seem to remain largely unchanged. Migrants with strong local identity are more likely to use local networks in job search, and to obtain jobs with higher average wages and lower average hours worked, suggesting the value of integration policies.

As China’s population ages, more older workers are participating in the labor market, including a significant number of older migrant workers moving to urban areas. However, surprisingly little research has been done on their destination city and employment patterns. This paper addresses this gap by investigating the impact of city-level and industry specialization on the employment prospects of older migrant workers. Using both individual- and city-level data, we find that unlike prime-age migrant workers, older migrant workers have higher employment probabilities in relatively less-developed lower-tier Chinese cities than in better-developed high-tier cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, or Guangzhou. This phenomenon is driven by industry specialization, particularly in the construction sector, which fosters a dense labor market and facilitates higher job-finding rates. Additionally, construction firms and real estate developers in lower-tier cities are more willing to offer better wages than those in high-tier cities, which aligns with older migrant workers’ relatively moderate education profile and wage preferences over housing costs.

This study examines whether and how minimum wage hikes affect workers’ strikes in the context of China. We show that minimum wage significantly increases strikes at the city-level, and this effect is mainly motivated by demands for unpaid wages and severance pay. Mechanism analysis reveals that workers’ strikes are caused by inevitable involuntary unemployment arising from wage hikes. In addition, the increase in workers’ strike activities is more significant in tertiary industries, which require a larger share of low-wage workers and in regions with a higher degree of digital economy and innovation. Our findings provide clear policy implications for policymakers concerned with minimum wage and unemployment.

Using the firm-level data of the Chinese industrial sector from 1998 to 2010, this study investigates the impact of the previous environmental protection experience of prefecture-level Communist Party secretaries on the COD regulation within the secretaries’ respective jurisdictions. The study finds that the secretaries’ previous environmental protection experience has reduced the COD discharge intensity. The duration of the previous environmental protection experience is selected as an instrumental variable and the endogeneity is further addressed; the research conclusion remains unchanged. However, this negative impact only lasts for two years and presents an unclear long-term impact. The negative effect on COD discharge intensity caused by the previous environmental protection experience is affected by the mandatory regulation pressure from the central government and the overall polluting density of the sub-sectors. Secretaries with previous environmental protection experience do not reduce the COD discharge intensity by using the punishment mechanism of increasing sewage charges. The secretaries, instead, encourage enterprises to use clean production technology, save water resources, and reduce the produced COD level. Also, the secretaries place an emphasis on the treatment of wastewater pollutants, thus reducing the COD discharge intensity. The conclusions of this study can provide decisionmaking reference for the selection and training of local officials, with the goal of environmental regulation.

Using the firm-level data of the Chinese industrial sector from 1998 to 2010, this study investigates the impact of the previous environmental protection experience of prefecture-level Communist Party secretaries on the COD regulation within the secretaries’ respective jurisdictions. The study finds that the secretaries’ previous environmental protection experience has reduced the COD discharge intensity. The duration of the previous environmental protection experience is selected as an instrumental variable and the endogeneity is further addressed; the research conclusion remains unchanged. However, this negative impact only lasts for two years and presents an unclear long-term impact. The negative effect on COD discharge intensity caused by the previous environmental protection experience is affected by the mandatory regulation pressure from the central government and the overall polluting density of the sub-sectors. Secretaries with previous environmental protection experience do not reduce the COD discharge intensity by using the punishment mechanism of increasing sewage charges. The secretaries, instead, encourage enterprises to use clean production technology, save water resources, and reduce the produced COD level. Also, the secretaries place an emphasis on the treatment of wastewater pollutants, thus reducing the COD discharge intensity. The conclusions of this study can provide decisionmaking reference for the selection and training of local officials, with the goal of environmental regulation.

Using a proprietary bank-loan-level dataset, we find a surprising negative relation between loan spreads and minimum wage. We propose a stylized model to explain the relation: banks filter out the low-quality borrowers after the wage shocks, resulting in a separating equilibrium. Our evidence is consistent with the model’s predictions: (1) city-level and firm-level evidence shows that an increase in minimum wage is negatively associated with the likelihood of obtaining bank loans, especially for labor-intensive borrowers, (2) deal-level evidence shows that both the average default rate and loan spreads decrease when minimum wage rises, and (3) subsequently, labor intensive firms that are still able to obtain bank loans when minimum wage rises outperform their peers. Our findings suggest that as more credit resources are allocated to better quality firms and leave other firms far more behind, the existence of such credit reallocation effects can exacerbate the divergence between higher and lower quality firms induced by an increase in minimum wages.

Many studies suggest a positive and monotonic relationship between technological progress and wage income inequality since 1980s for industrialized economies. We examine this topic in the context of the Chinese economy where new technologies like automation, AI and digitalization have witnessed worldís most rapid growth in the last decade. Surprsingly, we Önd an inverted U-Shaped relationship - a "Digital Kuznets Curve", using a panel dataset constructed in line with the newly published "2021 Categorization of Core Industries of Digital Economy". We then set out a task-based growth model with heterogenous human capital and occupational choice, and show that this hump-shaped relationship can emerge either by introducing an erosion e§ect of digitalization on worker ability that increasingly counterveils the skill-biasing e§ect, or by directly adding a dynamic learning cost that captures the externality of digitalization. Our study contributes to the understanding of the nature of digitalization in re-shaping labor market structure.

Declining worker bargaining power has been advanced as an explanation for dramatic generational changes in the U.S. macroeconomic environment such as the substantial decline in labor’s share of the national income, the loss of consumer purchasing power, and growing income and wealth inequality. In this paper, we investigate microeconomic implications by examining the effect of declining worker power on firm-level investment responses to a labor cost shock (mandated increases in the minimum wage). Over the past four decades, we find that investment-wage sensitivities go from negative to insignificant as management becomes less constrained and can pursue outside options. Consistent with drivers of weakening worker power, investment-wage sensitivity changes are more significant for firms that are more exposed to globalization, technological change, and declining unionization.