Two Achievements by Associate Professor Liu Kaihao Published in International Authoritative Journals EDCC and JCE
Recently, two co-authored papers by Associate Professor Liu Kaihao from the School of Economics, Shandong University, were officially published in Economic Development and Cultural Change (EDCC), an international authoritative journal in development economics, and Journal of Comparative Economics (JCE), an international authoritative journal in comparative economics. EDCC is recognized as one of the most influential journals in the field of development economics, mainly publishing high-level papers that use modern theoretical and empirical methods to test the determinants and impacts of economic development and cultural change. JCE is an international authoritative journal in the fields of comparative economics and institutional economics, focusing on research in comparative economics, including theoretical and empirical research.
The co-authored paper Import Tariff Liberalization and Child Labor: Evidence from China by Associate Professor Liu Kaihao, doctoral candidate Wang Xuefang and master candidate Zhang Tingru from the School of Economics, Shandong University, was published in Economic Development and Cultural Change. Associate Professor Liu Kaihao is the co-first author. This paper reveals the welfare effect of trade liberalization from the perspective of children's individual educational opportunities, extending the welfare effect of trade liberalization to the human capital market. Different from Zhao et al. (2021), which uses the quasi-natural experiment of the United States granting China "Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR)" status to confirm the impact of export tariff cuts on children's educational opportunities, this paper adopts the "regional labor market" analysis method to identify the impact of trade liberalization (import tariff cuts). The study finds that trade liberalization increases children's individual educational opportunities. At the same time, potential impact mechanism analysis finds that trade liberalization mainly works through two paths: reducing the opportunity cost (indirect cost) of education investment and increasing the rate of return on education.
The co-authored paper Organizing regulatory structure and local air quality: Evidence from the environmental vertical management reform in China by Associate Professor Liu Kaihao, Researcher Li Pei from Zhejiang University, Professor Lu Yi from Tsinghua University, and Assistant Professor Peng Lu from University of International Business and Economics, was published in Journal of Comparative Economics. Associate Professor Liu Kaihao is the co-first author. This paper studies China's new environmental vertical management reform system. By analyzing the phased implementation of the reform, the study finds that the air quality index has decreased significantly by 25.1%. This improvement is mainly attributed to the weakened influence of local governments on front-line environmental regulatory agencies, the consistent effectiveness of local and their superior supervisors, and the increased efforts of local governments in environmental protection in a more impartial regulatory environment. This study emphasizes the effectiveness of allocating management power to different administrative levels, helping to reshape the incentive mechanism of local environmental supervisors, improve implementation efficiency and promote the achievement of policy goals.
Liu Kaihao is an Associate Professor and Ph.D. Supervisor at the School of Economics, Shandong University, Deputy Editor of The Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Vice President of Oxford Sino-British Academic Exchange Association, and Special Advisor of Oxford China Forum. He holds a joint Ph.D. from Nankai University and the University of Birmingham. He has published more than 30 papers in domestic and foreign journals such as Economic Development and Cultural Change, Journal of Comparative Economics, Journal of Applied Economics, and China Industrial Economics (2 papers). He has successively presided over the Youth Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Shandong Provincial Social Science Planning Research Project, etc., and won the Second Prize (twice) and Third Prize of Shandong Provincial Social Science Excellent Achievements.
Links to Paper 1 and Paper 2:
Import Tariff Liberalization and Child Labor: Evidence from China | Economic Development and Cultural Change: Vol 73, No 2
Organizing regulatory structure and local air quality: Evidence from the environmental vertical management reform in China - ScienceDirect
