Shao-Chieh Hsueh, Hao Liu, Shuoxun Zhang*
Emerging Markets Review 2026
This paper examines how China's Incorporation of Counties into Prefectures (ICP) reform reshapes the relationship between firms' political connections and land transfer prices. Using land transaction records and manually collected political-connection information for both listed and unlisted firms in the Sichuan-Chongqing urban agglomeration from 2007 to 2020, we document a sizeable “political discount” in land prices: politically connected firms acquire industrial and commercial land at significantly lower prices than otherwise comparable firms. Crucially, this discount is materially compressed after counties are incorporated into prefecture-level cities. The moderating effect is stronger in locations facing tighter fiscal conditions—greater fiscal pressure, heavier reliance on land-based revenues, and higher living costs—suggesting that local incentives and constraints shape how effectively the reform disciplines preferential treatment. We further show that the attenuation is more pronounced for non-local political ties and firms operating in lower–social-capital environments. Mechanism evidence indicates that ICP weakens the landprice advantage associated with political connections by strengthening market forces through intensified local entry and by tightening oversight through stronger audit enforcement. Overall, the findings highlight how hierarchical governance reforms can mitigate land-price distortions associated with political connections and improve allocative efficiency in factor markets.
Shao-Chieh Hsueh, Lingzi Liu, Shuoxun Zhang*, and Jingyi Zhao
Economic Modelling 2026
This paper examines how auction design can unintentionally facilitate bidder collusion in the land market.
Departing from the dominant view that attributes low land concession revenues to corruption, we highlight how features of auction structure enable bidder-side collusion, suppressing sale prices. Using a dataset of land auctions from 15 Chinese cities (2006–2016), we find that two-stage (listing) auctions are significantly more susceptible to collusion than one-stage formats. Empirical evidence shows that sales concluding at the (secret)
reserve price occur disproportionately in two-stage auctions, even after controlling for land and market characteristics. We argue that the transparency and sequencing of two-stage auctions, while designed to enhance fairness, inadvertently reduce monitoring costs and facilitate tacit bidder coordination. Our findings underscore the need to jointly consider auction format and reserve price policy in designing land sales to enhance market efficiency and mitigate collusion risks.
Shao-Chieh Hsueh, Shuying Jiang, Shuoxun Zhang*
Emerging Markets Finance and Trade 2024
This paper studies whether digital financial development encourages rural-urban migrants to settle down for a longer period of time. Using data from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS) for periods 2014–2018, our results support an overall facilitating effect in the decision to stay for the long-term from a digital finance perspective. The effect of digital finance is more pronounced for migrants who are internet users, above high-school education, younger than 35 years old, with urban hukou, or intra-provincial migrants. Moreover, the availability of the formal finance supports long-term settlement for migrants who are older than 35, inter-provincial migrants, or self-employed.
Zhang Teng, Xu Shu, Zhang Shuoxun*
China Economic Review, 2022
This paper examines the nexus between export tax rebates and productivity using Chinese firm-level data from 2000 to 2007. The empirical findings indicate that a one percentage point decrease in export tax rebate rates increases the total factor productivity (TFP) of a firm by about 0.1 percentage points. We explore the possible mechanisms that explain this nexus and attribute it to the allocation effect of export tax rebate policy; that is, export tax rebates prevent low-productivity firms from exiting the market and further reallocate resources and economic activities to them. In addition, a decrease in rebate rates significantly encourages the TFP growth of surviving firms and leads to an increase in aggregate TFP. Specifically, throughout 2000–07, the declining rebate rates accounted for 5.23% of the rise in the aggregate TFP, and the between-firm effect was 3.85%, which is much larger than the within effect.
杜鹏程 刘睿雯 张烁珣*
世界经济，2022
本文通过构建理论模型刻画了劳动力成本和贸易成本影响劳动收入份额的经济逻辑，并使用中国工业企业数据， 从最低工资和进口中间品关税变化的双重视角检验了要素成本对企业劳动收入份额的影响。 研究发现，最低工资标准的上涨和中间品关税的下降均降低了企业劳动收入份额，且这一结论在缓解要素成本的内生性后依然成立。 如果消除两种要素成本的变动，企业劳动收入份额将提高 0.98个百分点，相对提高幅度达 30.6%。 对总量劳动收入份额变动的分解发现，企业间要素资源再配置效应的下降是要素成本降低劳动收入份额的重要渠道。 本文的研究结论对于积极推进要素市场化改革、促进经济发展方式转变具有重要的政策借鉴意义。