Zeyi Qian (钱则一)

This paper examines sectoral growth patterns across Chinese provinces during the country's economic takeoff in the early 2000s, following key policy reforms including trade liberalization, infrastructure expansion, business climate improvements, and relaxed rural-to-urban migration restrictions. We develop a multi-sector, multi-region spatial general equilibrium model based on the Melitz-Chaney framework to analyze how these factors interact to influence the geographic distribution of manufacturing activities. We calibrate the model and conduct counterfactual simulations to identify the key mechanisms driving regional development. We find that reductions in trade costs intensify competition and deter firm entry, whereas lowered entry barriers foster firm creation. Together, these factors shape China's overall economic growth and regional specialization. Our decomposition exercises reveal that lowered business entry costs played a larger role than the reduction in trade costs in promoting welfare and that the growth of real wages, especially in inland regions, is primarily driven by the reallocation of resources towards more productive firms and the exit of less productive ones.

• Economics Seminar, July 1, 2025, Nankai University, Tianjing, China
• IESR Seminar, June 25, 2025, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China
• The 89th Annual Meetings of the Midwest Economics Association, March 21-23, 2025, Kansas City, Missouri
• Chair of Macroeconomics, March 4, 2025, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
• The 26th Göttingen Workshop "International Economics," February 26–28, 2025, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany
• The 11th International Workshop on Regional, Urban, and Spatial Economics in China, June14-15, 2024, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
• 2024 Chinese Economists Society (CES) China Annual Conference, July 5-7, 2024, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

This study quantifies the role of firm-level scale economies in shaping Japan's firm spatial distribution and aggregate economic outcomes, utilizing a spatial general equilibrium model based on Krugman framework calibrated to 2011 data. We assume immobile elderly workers and mobile young workers across Japanese regions. Our findings indicate that a rise in the elderly population, compared to the young, promotes firm entry. Furthermore, we show that an increasing share of elderly workers positively impacts aggregate productivity and GDP growth, aligning with Japan's policies promoting active senior employment. This is because their fixed regional presence and contributions to labor supply and consumption support local industry scale, sustain industrial agglomeration and associated economies of scale, and help balance excessive concentration. By comparing our results with an Eaton-Kortum model (which lacks increasing returns to scale), we find that scale economies in the Krugman model significantly amplify the effects of demographic shifts on Japan's overall economic performance.

This paper examines how the U.S. economy adapted to the ``China shock'' in the early 21st century. While this trade shock initially disrupted U.S. manufacturing and led to job losses, it surprisingly accelerated the growth of the service sector. We argue that a key factor in this transformation was the reduction in labor relocation costs, which allowed workers, especially those with lower education levels, to move into the service industry. This not only helped offset the negative effects of the trade shock but also improved labor market efficiency. To understand this dynamic, we developed a dynamic Eaton-Kortum model that incorporates declining labor relocation costs and worker heterogeneity. Our simulations demonstrate that these reduced costs enabled more low-educated workers to transition into the service sector, highlighting their crucial role in mitigating trade shock impacts and optimizing labor allocation.

This paper argues that provincial borders in China significantly inflate domestic trade costs, hindering the formation of a national unified market. While regional integration initiatives, such as the Yangtze River Delta, generate substantial trade gains (estimated at up to 21\%), we contend these efforts may be insufficient to overcome deep-seated inter-provincial divisions. Using a structural gravity model to analyze China's domestic trade flows, we quantitatively assess this policy paradox. Our counterfactual analysis reveals a critical trade-off: eliminating provincial boundaries fosters national market unification by reducing price dispersion, whereas policies solely focused on regional integration risk creating ``club effects'' that can heighten trade costs with outside regions. This research quantifies the steep trade costs resulting from internal fragmentation and highlights that without directly addressing provincial barriers, regional integration alone may fail to achieve a truly unified national market.

Using firm-level registration data and city-level statistics, this paper empirically investigates the relationship between city size and firm survival. The results reveal that firms in larger cities tend to have higher survival rates. Mechanism analysis suggests that larger cities create positive externalities—such as increased export opportunities, lower entry cutoff, and enhanced innovation capacity—that help mitigate the adverse effects of higher wages and costs. However, this positive relationship does not increase monotonically. We identify an inverted U-shaped relationship between Chinese city size and firm survival during 2001 to 2014, with an optimal city size of 5.59 million people, beyond which congestion costs begin to outweigh the agglomeration benefits.

When capital leaves a country and then flows back as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), we call it round-tripping FDI. It is widely suspected that China's official FDI statistics contain a substantial amount of round-tripping FDI. However, it is difficult to quantify the round-tripping FDI due to the lack of data. In this paper, we propose two methods to identify round-tripping FDI. The first one tracks capital flows at firm level. If a firm in China invests in a foreign firm and the foreign firm makes an investment back to China shortly after, then we consider this investment to China as round-tripping FDI. Our second measure of round-tripping FDI adds to the first measure by including investments in China made by Chinese investors/firms registered in tax havens. By this second method, round-tripping FDI accounts for as much as 65 percent of the total FDI China received from 1999 to 2015. Our firm-level analysis shows that industrial enterprises facing higher tax burdens are more likely to make round-tripping FDI. We also show that at the city level, adjusted FDI statistics by subtracting the estimated round-tripping FDI are better predictors of local imports and exports. Finally, we show that provinces receiving higher shares of round-tripping FDI are more likely to be punished for illegal financial activities. Taken together, these findings suggest that our measures of round-tripping FDI, although noisy, are indicative of real transactions.

Adopting a spatial perspective on talent policies, this paper constructs a quantitative standard for Chinese urban talent policy, and scores 3308 talent policies in 293 prefecture-level cities. On this basis, by using spatial analysis methods, this paper characterizes the spatiotemporal differentiation and evolutionary processes of talent policies at the prefecture-level in China from 2012 to 2021. Meanwhile, this paper designs an evaluation index system for new quality productive forces in cities, and conducts a quantitative study on the relationship between urban talent policies and new quality productive forces. The results show that: (1) The comprehensive scores of talent policies exhibit a southeast-to-northwest gradient, featuring higher scores in the southeast and lower scores in the northwest. Specifically, the eastern region has maintained a high level of scores throughout, while the central region, despite starting from a lower base, has experienced rapid growth. In contrast, the western and northeastern regions have experienced relatively slower improvements. (2) Based on the analysis of urban types from the three dimensions of ``policy intensity-policy objective-policy measure", it is evident that cities with simultaneous progress in all three dimensions tend to expand from the coast towards the inland. Additionally, internal polarization is prominent in the western and northeastern regions. (3) The analysis of urban types based on the three dimensions of ``policy instrument-policy link- prioritized talent" reveals that the central region exhibits shortcomings in the use of safeguard policy instruments, while the western and northeastern regions lack adequate development policy instruments. The western region faces notable shortcomings in talent retention policies, while the northeastern region exhibits deficiencies in talent cultivation policies. While regions vary in their preferences for talent types, highly educated talents have universally emerged as the primary focus. (4) In practical terms, talent policies significantly enhance the development of new quality productive forces by leveraging the talent agglomeration effect, innovation-driven effect, and industrial upgrading effect, with distinct heterogeneities observed across regions and policy types. The research conclusions can provide decision-making references for local governments to formulate more practical talent policies. The marginal contributions of this paper lie in: Firstly, it innovatively designs a quantitative standard system for prefecture-level talent policies in China, encompassing three dimensions: policy intensity, policy objectives, and policy measures. This system was applied to score 3308 talent policy texts across 293 prefecture-level cities from 2002 to 2021, thereby establishing a panel database (2012-2021) of comprehensive scores and detailed indicators for China's prefecture-level talent policies. This provides comprehensive and robust data support for subsequent research. Secondly, employing spatial analysis methods, the paper systematically characterizes the spatiotemporal evolution of talent policies at the prefecture-level in China. It presents a panoramic view of their gradient distribution pattern, internal regional polarization characteristics, and the trajectory of spatial center shifts, constituting a valuable exploration into the spatial dynamics of nationwide prefecture-level talent policies. Thirdly, it constructs an evaluation index system for urban new quality productive forces and conducts a quantitative study on the relationship between talent policies and new quality productive forces. This research precisely identifies the heterogeneous effects of policies across regions, policy instruments, and policy links, offering new perspectives and evidence for understanding the spatiotemporal evolution and practical effectiveness of talent policies in Chinese cities.

As an important supplement to formal agreements and institutional arrangements, the establishment of international twin cities has strengthened trust and in-depth communication between cities, becoming an important catalyst and booster for international economic cooperation. Based on the perspective of foreign trade high-quality development, this paper examines the impact of the“circle of friends” formed by international twin cities on the export trade between cities using the data of matching pairs between 287 Chinese cities and 136 countries or regions in 2002-2015.The results find that: (1)The agree ments ofinternational twin cities have significantly promoted the export volumeand export value of Chinese cities by 10.0%and 11.6% respectively.(2) The trade promotion effect of international twin cities is more derived from trade creation rather than trade transfer. (3）In addition to affecting exports by intensive margins, international twin cities have also promoted the expansion margins of exports in terms of the number of product types and the proportion of high-tech industries.(4)With SARS and the global financial crisis as incident impacts, the agreements of international twin cities has strengthened the ability of Chinese cities to resist risks in exports. (5)The results of heterogeneity analysis show that the agree ments of international twin cities have more obvious export promotion effect on non-Belt and Road countries and geographically adjacent countries in China.

In the context of developing a high-level open economy, evaluating the impact and role of FDI from multiple perspectives is an important prerequisite for correctly drawing up the negative list of foreign investment access. From the perspective of enterprise survival and industrial security, this paper empirically tests the influence and mechanism of foreign capital on the host country. Specifically, on the basis of accurately measuring the survival rate of enterprises by using the micro big data of enterprise registration from SAIC (the State Administration of Industry and Commerce), we identify the economic effect of FDI on the host country from the perspective of enterprise survival, and examine the heterogeneity and mechanism of the Promotion Effect of FDI. At the same time, this paper also examines the impact of FDI on industrial security from the perspectives of technology availability, technology controllability and supply chain security. The results show that: (1) FDI significantly improves the survival rate of enterprises in host countries by encouraging new establishment of enterprises and reducing the death of existing enterprises. (2) Preference of foreign capital for local private enterprises in supply chain layout makes the survival promotion effect of private enterprises more obvious. (3) The entry of foreign capital promotes the survival of enterprises in host countries through efficiency and competition mechanism. (4) When the foreign investment market access policy intervention is less in the industry, FDI on the survival of the host country's enterprises to promote the effect is more obvious. (5) From the perspective of technology availability, technology controllability and supply chain security, FDI has improved the industrial security level of host country to a large extent.

As the cornerstone of building a comprehensive transportation system and a modern economic system, CHSR（China High-speed Railway）has greatly changed the way of national production and life, affecting the efficiency of spatial allocation of resources and reshaping the economic geography. The rapid development of CHSR, on the one hand, leads to the spatial concentration of production factors and resources and the peripheral development of small and medium-sized cities; On the other hand, brings about the increasingly fierce competition among small and medium-sized cities for high-speed railway stations. Are small and medium-sized cities battle for high-speed rail stations to "compete for inferior"? In order to answer this "paradox", based on the night light data and density gradient index, this paper re-measures the spatial agglomeration degree with defining the capital city or the central city as the core. On this basis, a theoretical hypothesis of "man-bear race" between the central cities that open high-speed railway and the small and medium-sized cities that compete for high-speed railway is put forward, and the hypothesis is verified by data. The research findings of this paper are as follows.(1) The opening of high-speed railway leads to the agglomeration of economic activities to provincial capitals or central cities, while small and medium-sized cities are becoming the peripheries, that is, "people cannot run faster than bears"; (2) Compared with the small and medium-sized cities without high-speed rail, the small and medium-sized cities with high-speed rail can achieve relatively fast economic growth, that is, "running ahead of their competitors"; (3) The theoretical logic of "man-bear race" well explains the "paradox" that small and medium-sized cities compete for " inferior position" through high-speed railway stations, that is, "they can't run faster than bears, but they have to run faster than their partners".