Our Beijing‐based laboratory experiment investigated gender differences in competitive choices across different birth‐cohorts experiencing – during their crucial developmental‐age – different institutions and social norms. To control for general time trends, we use Taipei counterpart subjects with identical original Confucian traditions. Our findings confirm that exposure to different institutions/norms during crucial developmental‐ages significantly changes individuals’ behaviour.

This paper uses survey and experimental data from prison inmates and comparable
non-inmates to examine the drivers of rising criminality in China. We find that China’s
high sex ratios are associated with greater risk-taking, greater impatience and greater
neuroticism amongst males. These underlying behavioural impacts explain some part
of the increase in criminality. The primary avenue through which the sex ratio increases
crime, however, is the direct pressure on men to appear financially attractive in order

Finding alternative livelihood possibility for state worker households is crucial for the successful implementation of Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) in China's key state forest regions. One local innovation to implement NFPP while allowing worker households alternative use of forestland is the “Contract Management Responsibility System (CMRS)”. Under CMRS, participating households have exclusive rights to harvest and grow non-timber forest products (NTFP) while fulfilling forest protection responsibility.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) launched seven emissions trading scheme (ETS) pilot projects in 2013–2014 to explore a cost-effective approach for low-carbon development. The central government subsequently announced its plans for the full-fledged implementation of ETS in the entire PRC in late 2017. To ensure the success of ETS in the PRC, it is necessary to gain a better understanding of the experiences and lessons learned in the pilot projects.

We examine the role of risk and time preferences in how forest owners respond to forest certification. We test hypotheses from a two-period harvest model derived from prospect theory in the context of Fujian, China, where new forest certification started in 2003. Using survey and field experiment data, we find that certification resulted in reduced harvesting, and the effect was larger for households who are more risk averse and exhibited distorted probability weighting.

We combine survey responses to subjective well-being (SWB) questions with air pollution data to recover Chinese residents' valuation of air quality improvements. Motivated by theoretical models of ‘projection bias’ and ‘recency bias’, we posit that one's SWB (and valuation) is affected disproportionately by more recent experiences with air pollution, even though long-term air pollution is more detrimental to one's actual well-being.

We investigate the spillover of macroeconomic uncertainty between the U.S. and China since 2002.
Following Jurado et al. (2015), we construct a monthly aggregate macroeconomic uncertainty index for
China from 224 economic variables. The structural vector autoregression model suggests a unidirectional
spillover of macroeconomic uncertainty from the U.S. to China. Both U.S. and Chinese uncertainty have
negative effects on China’s real economy, but the impact of U.S. uncertainty is greater.