In May 2020, China formulated the Internal Circulation Strategy (ICS) to address the risks of global economic downturns caused by deglobalization. This study is the first to empirically examine the impacts of China's ICS on its stock market performance, focusing on investor behavior. Using data from the Baidu search index and the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges for the period 27 July 2020 to 5 May 2023, the results reveal that stock returns are negatively associated with investor attention to China's ICS, while stock volatilities are positively associated. This suggests that the ongoing and profound shift in economic strategy might have raised concerns among investors. Furthermore, our analysis of heterogeneity finds that the negative association with stock market returns is statistically significant only during times of high policy uncertainty or geopolitical risk. The positive association with stock market volatility is statistically significant only during times of high geopolitical risk. This indicates that the stability of the internal and external environment plays a crucial role in alleviating investor concerns. We also observe mixed impacts on different sectors of the stock markets, with some sectors unaffected while others primarily experiencing a decline in returns.

Using the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) data, we find a 30 percent raw differential in earnings in favor of state workers in 2002. We examine the degree to which this differential is a pure premium by using a Heckman two-step selection model, where we instrument workers’ preference for state jobs with family political connections, among other factors. We find that 22 percent of the observed earnings differential is a pure premium to a worker in a state job in urban China. In the absence of a political transition in China, state jobs remained the privileged constituency in a dual-track transition that attracted the best politically connected workers in urban China and offered them a pure earnings premium.

Despite its significance in policymaking and theory, empirical work on external returns to education has not been fruitful, and most studies focus on developed countries. This paper discusses external returns to education in China, an important developing economy. Using longitudinal data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, we estimate a fixed-effects instrumental variables model and find positive returns of about 10 to 14 percent. Negligible returns are found for urban, female, and highly educated workers, and returns are positive and statistically significant for rural, male, and poorly educated workers. This suggests that China should increase public investment in education and target rural areas and poorly educated workers. Gender differences in the external returns to education may also imply that China should make more efforts to enhance the capacity of “networking” and competitiveness for women.

This paper examines the impact of political connections on corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&As) behavior using data from companies listed in Chinese equity markets during the period 1998 to 2010. Our empirical results indicate that firms with political connections have a greater probability of engaging in M&As and tend to engage in larger-scale M&As. The impact of political connections on corporate M&As is mainly realized via government intervention in state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The paper also investigates the impact of political connections on M&A performance, demonstrating a significantly negative impact when SOEs are involved but a significantly positive impact when non-SOEs are involved. The findings of this paper suggest that the political connections of Chinese listed firms have a strong influence on M&A activities and performance.