Jack W. Hou

California State University, Long Beach | CSULB · Department of Economics

We explore how sex preference affects family size, and whether there is a tradeoff between family size and educational outcomes. Taking into account the endogeneity in family size and allowing for heterogeneous effect, family size has a negative impact on measured educational outcomes. Each additional sibling reduces years of education by almost tw...

Taking a political legitimacy perspective, this paper examines how the outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) of Chinese non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) in countries along the Belt and Road (B&R) affected their financing capabilities. It was found that the OFDI in B&R countries significantly increased the access of non-SOE to long-term and...

Private firms have actively responded to the State’s call to participate in targeted poverty alleviation and become an important part of the whole society’s participation in poverty alleviation. Their participation can not only contribute to poverty reduction, but also enrich the information disclosure of social responsibility, so as to earn the re...

Land finance has become one of the important major sources of fiscal revenue for Chinese local governments. The spatial allocation of land use constitutes a land-leasing policy operation of local officials, contributing to local economic development and fluctuation. Applying data from 283 prefectural units from 2003 to 2012, this paper explores the...

The COVID-19 outbreak had a significant impact on business cash flows and investment activities. This paper examined the COVID-19 impact on Chinese business investment in 3326 A-share listed quarterly financial reports, from which it was found that the negative relationship was more pronounced in the large, eastern Chinese state-owned firms. Using...

As the U.S.–China trade deficit continues to rise, China has been at the top of the list in terms of the International Trade Commission (ITC) antidumping (AD) cases. In this paper, we ask the question whether the ITC AD prosecution is based on pure economic content or is it somewhat jaded by politics. Utilizing a Probit model, we examine the effect...

Toward the end of the previous century, the focus on economic growth and development has shifted from overpopulation as a burden of growth toward the issue of aging population. This is a global issue, but it is especially acute for China. First, for China, the aging population is not a mere natural economic consequence of increased wealth leading t...

We estimate the rates of return to education in rural China using primary survey data collected in 2016. Estimated average returns to education are 3.1 per cent. However, careful statistical analysis is required when estimating the returns to education. The paper demonstrates that when employment interruptions are accounted for, the measured return...

Based on the theory of optimal currency area (OCA), we calculate the OCA index between China and the OBOR partners with the expressed objective of identifying which partners exhibit monetary and financial compatibilities, and hence present the best potential in terms of cost and benefits. Our findings suggest that among South East Asia region, Mala...

The paper evaluates the effectiveness of China increasing its tax rebate on textile exports to the USA. Using the difference-in-differences technique and employing The Harmonized System six-digit data, it is found that the tax rebate policy boosted the growth of textile exports to the USA. Approximately 6 to 25 per cent of the growth can be attribu...

The 2008 international financial crisis triggered retrospection on both theory and policy, reaching a macroeconomic consensus that the financial system plays an important role in the macro economy and macroeconomic theory must be restructured to incorporate endogenous financial factors. Reflecting on the inherent flaws of traditional mainstream eco...

Imported producer services play a vital role in the continued development of the industrialized economies. Countries like the U.S., UK, Japan, Germany, etc., utilize imported scientific research to help domestic manufacturing. Most developing nations are in the early stages of adopting this strategy, China is no exception. Among the four mega metro...

In criticizing the nature of the Human Development Index, this paper proposes a different way of constructing the HDI in terms of capturing the pure flow of human development in the areas of material well-being, health, and education. Our comparison of the HDIF and the HDI shows that measuring human development with flow variables provides a better...

This paper documents important changes in the Chinese macroeconomic environment over the last three decades. The volatility of Chinese aggregate economic activities has fallen dramatically by nearly 60 per cent during its reform period, a phenomenon that coincides with the ‘Great Moderation’ that occurred in most industrialized economies. We employ...

Given the dominance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Taipei, China (97.6% of business establishments, and 77.1% of employment), it is of vital importance to develop ways to aid SMEs in surviving the current global economic crisis. Indeed, the government can utilize this crisis to reform and strengthen SMEs so they can continue to be...

It is projected that by 2050 China could have a staggering 115 million elderly citizens over 80 years old. Serious planning is needed to cope with this demand. This is the direct and inevitable result of the one-child policy that came into effect in 1979, as an independent policy to the Comprehensive Economic Reform; but the complementary nature is...

Despite the early success in mobilizing the people after seizing power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) soon faced difficult bottlenecks. After the disastrous Great Leap Forward, compounded by the Three Bitter Years of natural calamities, reformists instituted a series of changes moving towards more market oriented rewards. This was short...

As academicians, we emphasize to our students to keep up with class, and always read ahead. When I took over as President-elect of the WSSA in April of 2008, while busy communicating with the Section Coordinators and plan the 2009 Annual Conference (Reno, Nevada), I would occasionally pause and ponder what I would present for my President Address (...

China has been experiencing two major demographic sea changes since the late 1970s: (i) Internal migration, primarily rural-to-urban, on a scale that dwarfs all other countries at any time in history; and (ii) a shift in its age distribution. The basic question posed in this paper is: How are aging and migration related in post-reform China? We arg...

During the 1980s and 1990s, interprovincial migration in China surged concurrently with three major developments in the economy: deregulation of migration, rapid growth, and substantial increases in foreign and domestic investments. To what extent did these developments influence the changes in interprovincial migration? In this study, data from th...

Most segregation studies have focused on industrialized nations where the economic structure is stable. However, when an economy experiences rapid development, the changing nature of industries and occupations may have a profound impact on gender segregation. This study uses a rapidly developing economy—Taiwan—to examine this issue. Based on the Ye...

Unlike most countries, China regulates internal migration. Public benefits, access to good quality housing, schools, health care, and attractive employment opportunities are available only to those who have local registration (Hukou). Coincident with the deepening of economic reforms, Hukou has gradually been relaxed since the 1980s, helping to exp...

Since the late 1970s, China's government has gradually eased restrictions on internal migration. The easing of restrictions, along with rapid growth of the Chinese economy, the forces of globalisation, and substantial increases in foreign direct investment (FDI) and local construction spending, have greatly stimulated internal migration. The questi...

Since the 1980s, China's government has eased restrictions on internal migration. This easing, along with rapid growth of the Chinese economy and substantial increases in foreign and domestic investments, has greatly stimulated internal migration. Earlier studies have established that migration patterns were responsive to spatial differences in lab...

China embarked on its grand economic reform in 1978, and the resulting economic performance has impressive by any standard. Many have accredited China's apparent success to the "gradualism" or patience in its reform agenda. But equally important is China's reform "sequence", which began in staple food production before spreading to other sectors of...

Most segregation studies have focused on industrialized nations where the economic structure is stable. However, when an economy experiences rapid development, the nature of industries and occupations changes, and may have profound impact on gender segregation. This study attempts to bring attention to this issue by one particular rapidly developin...

In the feudalistic society of medieval Europe, factors of production (such as land, etc.) were not commodities, it was not possible to change one’s status through economic activities. With the collapse of the manor system, Europe evolved into Mercantilism, followed by a brief period of Physiocrats, which inspired the laissez faire of Smith, promoti...

The location decisions of Taiwanese direct investment (TDI) in China are analyzed using a conditional logit model at provincial level. We assess the factors that determine the establishment of Taiwanese new manufacturing-branch-plants in China for three sub-periods (1987-90, 1991-94, and 1995-98). The results indicate that Taiwanese firms prefer th...

This paper attempts to estimate the nearness of near monies in Canada including foreign monetary assets, i.e. US dollars. The results enable us to make a statement about how substitutable US dollars are in the Canadian private asset portfolio. This brought the event of currency substitution into the near money framework and we found US dollars are...

This paper examines the 1994 inflation in China, which occurred at a time when the government was vigorously conducting macroeconomic contraction. The event deserves more attention for both academic and policy research reasons. The paper shows that the inflation was led by food price increases, a step of price reform intended to adjust relative pri...

The source or engine of economic growth has always captured the attention of development economists. The traditional regression method has two inadequacies. First, it does not give enough credit to the contribution of productive factors. Second, the sector it identifies as the "engine" may be due to collinearity or because that sector controlled th...

Pacific Asia is deep rooted in its cultural heritage and historical background, which have set the tone for regions success. These same factors also have created rather different trading practices, compared with those of the West — practices that are less transparent and full of hidden private trade barriers. Interdependence within the region sugge...

Based on the comparison of a regular-sized (n=25) and an oversized (n=54) class of college students taught by the same instructor, significant superior performance was found in favor of the large class. This disparity persisted even when a switching regression model (with endogenous switching) was performed. Only 39% of the learning disparity can b...

The Czech Republic is facing a population ageing phenomenon. In addition, its demographic structure is expected to change dramatically over the next 50 years. We apply a stylised overlapping generation model in order to analyse the potential effects of the expected demographic changes on aggregate economic performance taking into account alternativ...

This paper examines the wage differential between the genders in a newly industrialized economy-Taiwan. The objective is to verify the existence and magnitude of the Taiwanese wage differential (or discrimination as some would term it) and contrast it with findings in the United States.The gender gap was estimated for the private sector and the pub...

Earlier research suggests that there has been one-way causality from government reve- nues to expenditures in Taiwan. This study measures linear feedback to (1) decompose the relationship between Taiwan's government spending and receipts and (2) account for con- temporaneous association. Despite substantial fiscal synchronization, we still find one...