Working Papers
Economic Liberalization, Foreign Trade Access, and Regional Industrialization
A draft can be found: [pdf].
Abstract: Economic liberalization involves opening up to trade and reducing control over the private sector. The outcomes of such a national policy often vary across regions due to the interaction between these two processes. This paper illustrates a mechanism through which foreign trade access shaped private industrial firm entry in a liberalized economy, using China during the Warlord Era (1912–1928) as a compelling example. Leveraging newly digitized data from the Chinese Maritime Customs, I construct an innovative measure of foreign trade access by combining the gravity model, the competitive price index, and the market-access approach. Exogenous variation in foreign trade access arose from both global politics, through the pre-established trade structure, and domestic warlord politics, through internal trade barriers. The firm entry model and the empirical results show that better access to foreign consumer goods discouraged domestic firm entry, while better access to foreign capital goods encouraged entry. Entry was more elastic with respect to access to foreign consumer goods than to capital goods. To address potential endogeneity concerns, I further exploit the unique historical context of warlordism to design IVs. The findings provide valuable implications for developing countries, suggesting caution in tariff reduction and transportation infrastructure development. For China, if the private industrial sector had been liberalized earlier, industrialization could have taken shape sooner. However, not all treaty ports benefited regional industrialization, nor did warlordism always hinder it.
A draft can be found: [pdf].
Abstract: Economic liberalization involves opening up to trade and reducing control over the private sector. The outcomes of such a national policy often vary across regions due to the interaction between these two processes. This paper illustrates a mechanism through which foreign trade access shaped private industrial firm entry in a liberalized economy, using China during the Warlord Era (1912–1928) as a compelling example. Leveraging newly digitized data from the Chinese Maritime Customs, I construct an innovative measure of foreign trade access by combining the gravity model, the competitive price index, and the market-access approach. Exogenous variation in foreign trade access arose from both global politics, through the pre-established trade structure, and domestic warlord politics, through internal trade barriers. The firm entry model and the empirical results show that better access to foreign consumer goods discouraged domestic firm entry, while better access to foreign capital goods encouraged entry. Entry was more elastic with respect to access to foreign consumer goods than to capital goods. To address potential endogeneity concerns, I further exploit the unique historical context of warlordism to design IVs. The findings provide valuable implications for developing countries, suggesting caution in tariff reduction and transportation infrastructure development. For China, if the private industrial sector had been liberalized earlier, industrialization could have taken shape sooner. However, not all treaty ports benefited regional industrialization, nor did warlordism always hinder it.
Foreign Trade in Times of Civil Conflict: China during the Warlord Era
A draft can be found: [pdf].
Abstract: International trade involves the movement of goods not only across borders but also within countries; therefore, domestic trade costs are crucial for understanding a country’s foreign trade. The lack of domestic market integration hindered the diffusion of foreign goods across China well into the mid-twentieth century. This paper documents a new factor that impeded domestic market integration: civil conflict during the Warlord Era (1912–1928), a crucial period that immediately followed the collapse of the Qing dynasty. Using a structural gravity model with newly digitized trade data, I show that belonging to different military factions significantly increased bilateral trade costs between provinces and treaty ports. Leveraging the 1917 Russian Revolution as an exogenous supply shock and employing a shift-share instrumental variable design, I show that the demand for foreign goods was elastic. The total volume of imports would have been significantly higher if there had been no civil conflict.
Rise of the Red: Ideology and Dissent in Early Republican China (with Elizaveta Brover)
Working paper upon request
Abstract: Despite growing concerns about foreign propaganda, there remains limited empirical evidence on whether and how it translates into actual political behavior. This paper examines one of the most influential cases of political propaganda in the twentieth century: the worldwide spread of Russian Communist ideology. Following the 1917 Revolution, Communist Russia actively sought to export its ideology abroad. This study documents the impact of exposure to Russian books on labor movements in China between 1918 and 1925. Treaty port cities more exposed to Russian books experienced a larger number of labor strikes, while no significant effects were found for books from other countries. A comparison between Russian and U.S. books suggests that the significant effects of Russian books were likely driven by the mass production of ideological publications in Russia, rather than by selection within China. As a primary form of class struggle, labor strikes played an important role in the formation of the Chinese Communist Party.
A Geographic Accident? Coal Markets in Early Republican China
A draft can be found: [pdf].
This paper examines the development of coal markets in China during the Early Republican period (1912–1919) using newly digitized county-level data on coal prices and output. The findings show that coal markets rapidly integrated between 1912 and 1915, following market liberalization after the collapse of the Qing dynasty, but fragmented again with the onset of warlordism. The entry of private small coal mines played an important role in this brief period of integration. The high energy costs faced by commercial centers during the Qing were not purely the result of geographic misfortune, but also a consequence of unfavorable institutions.
Publications
RMSE-minimizing confidence intervals for the binomial parameter [pdf]
with Lawrence M. Leemis (W&M) and Heather Sasinowska (W&M)
with Lawrence M. Leemis (W&M) and Heather Sasinowska (W&M)