Date and Time: October 18th, 2019, 10:00 - 11:30 am

Room: Old Campus, Dongliuzhai

Abstract

A relationship between lying behavior and social peferences has often been proposed in explaining patterns of lying aversion (ex. Erat and Gneezy, 2011; Houser, Vetter and Winter, 2012; Maggian and Villeval, 2015). We assess subjects’ lying tendencies in the analogous scenarios using a novel multinomial version of a "mind cheating game" (Garbarino, Slonim and Villeval, 2017), which allows different degrees of lying and is independent of social image and reputation concerns. Our study allows us to observe how individual preferences over fairness and efficiency are associated with the willingness to lie for one's self and others. Selfish and spiteful lies are prevalent among those with strong spiteful preferences in the allocation task, while those subjects with efficiency-oriented preferences tell efficient lies on behalf of others. However, lying on behalf of fairness concerns among those with strong preference for fairness is less apparent in the data. The empirical patterns suggest that individuals with strong efficiency preference may be more likely to lie for fairness concerns, while those with strong fairness preferences may be more likely to lie out of self-interest.

About the Speaker

Jie Zheng is Associate Professor in the Department of Economics and Executive Associate Director of the Tsinghua Economic Science and Policy Experimental Laboratory at Tsinghua University. His research areas are Economic Theory, Information Economics, Experimental Economics, Behavioral Economics, Matching Theory, Financial Economics, Industrial Organization, and the Chinese Economy. His research was published in many well known journals, among them Review of International Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organisation and American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings.

Date and Time: October 17th, 2019, 10:30 am - 12:00 pm

Room: Old Campus, Dongliuzhai

Abstract

Using a merged immigrant dataset by OECD, this paper analyzes the size and emigration rate of China’s skilled diaspora. While the number of highly educated overseas Chinese continues to increase, the emigration rate has been declining. According to an educational definition of talent, the size of China’s skilled emigrants ranked second in the world, and it was among the countries with the lowest emigration rates in 2010. For most Chinese students studying abroad, their migration can be depicted as brain circulation, instead of brain drain. Employing shift-share method, this paper also finds that China’s skilled outflow can be largely explained by the effect of globalization, and the national effect is insignificant.
The results of negative binomial regression analysis reveal that population size, education level of nationals, and policy barriers of host countries are significant determinants of skilled emigration rate. The estimation based on the statistical models show that China’s emigration rate is substantially below the expected level. Using the OECD data and a national survey data of college graduates in the United States, the paper also explores the skilled flows at the high end. Most Chinese talent with a doctoral degree concentrate in the U.S.. They tend to acquire their highest degree in the host country, and stay to work after graduation. Only a smaller portion of high-end Chinese in the U.S. obtained their doctoral degree in China, and their stay abroad is likely to be temporary. The findings do not support the widely shared view that China has a severe problem of brain drain.

About the Speaker

Fangmeng Tian is an associate professor at Development of Sociology, Minzu University of China. He was awarded a PhD of public policy at George Mason University in 2012. His research interest includes skilled migration, international migration and other demographic issues. He has published several research articles on international journals, which focus on skilled migration between China and North America. He is working on an academic book on "brain drain".

Date and Time: April 16th, 2019, 10:00 - 11:30 am

Room: Dongliuzhai, Meeting Room on the 1st floor (Old Campus)

Abstract

Since 2001, the People Bank of China (PBoC) use its communication to manage market expectations. To check whether PBoC's communication affect expectations of market participants and matter as a monetary policy instrument, we test the impact of the sentiment of PBoC's communication on asset prices. For that purpose, we first rely on a computational linguistic tool to compute the sentiment of PBoC's speeches and second, we use a high frequency methodology to estimate the effects of sentiment on asset prices. Our results show that positive changes of sentiment affect positively equity prices in the Shanghai and the Shenzhen stocks markets and that negative changes of sentiment increase bond yield and market rate at longer maturity, i.e. the 10-year government bond yield and the 3-month money market rate, respectively. Additional extensions show that PBoC's communication does not have a persistent effect on equity prices beyond the speech-day and that the sentiment of PBoC's communication still has a positive and significant impact on equities even when controlling for all the monetary policy instruments implemented by the PBoC. Hence, our findings show that PBoC's communication matter as a monetary policy instrument to shape market expectations and to move asset prices.

Date and Time: October 26th, 2018, 2:30 - 3:30 pm

Room: A 101 in the Economics Building (Museum)

Abstract

We develop an epidemiological approach to analyze how financial contagion may affect and be affected by economic activity. We show that, according to specific parameter values, the economy may converge either to a non-speculative or to a speculative equilibrium: in the former situation the level of per capita income is maximal, while in the latter it is reduced by financial contagion. The presence of economic and financial feedback effects may also give rise to macroeconomic fluctuations during the transitional path, clearly showing that such economic and financial links are an important driver of the short run macroeconomic performance. By extending the analysis to a spatial dimension, we also show that financial contagion in some specific region may propagate quickly also in regions far away from those in which the contagion initially occurs, highlighting the role of regional policy coordination to avoid interregional contagion.

Date and Time: March 16th, 2018, 3:00 - 4:30 pm

Room: A 101 in the Economics Building (Museum)

Date and Time: January 17th, 2018, 10:00 - 11:30 am

Room: A 101 in the Economics Building (Museum)

Abstract

This paper examines the empirical relationship between economic freedom and corruption. We use a principal-agent-client model to identify the potential causal linkages between corruption and the components of economic freedom. We then estimate a twoequation system where freedom depends upon corruption and vice versa. Using a series of panel GMM estimators, we find that corruption lowers economic freedom, but that freedom does not significantly impact corruption. The result that corruption lowers freedom supports the “grabbing handing” theory of corruption where a non-benevolent government creates inefficient regulation and barriers of entry to create economic rents.