China Gazetteer Project
Link to Official Website
The project aims to digitalize archival data and understand China’s economic development since 1949. China experienced massive social-economic reforms, cultural shifts, institutional changes, rapid urbanization, industrialization, and modernization. Our project digitalizes over 1500 counties and province gazetteers data published in 1990s. The data covers historical statistics from 1949 to 1985 or beyond. We try to build a collect-and-share policy so that the original data file can be available to scholars interested in understanding Chinese economic development.
Working Papers
Persistence Despite Revolutions (with Alberto Alesina, Marlon Seror, David Yang, and Weihong Zeng) Updated August 2022, First Draft: August 2020,
--- Intergenerational Income persistence across Communist revolutions in China. The paper emphasizes the importance of intra-household culture transmission.
--- Gazetteer Data: County-level land distribution before and after Land Reform.
Educated Youth Should Go to the Rural Areas: A Tale of Education, Employment and Social Values July 2018 (Last Updated)
--- Sent-down youth movement induces more rural educational attainment, higher level of trust, subjective well-being, and better job satisfaction.
--- Gazetteer Data: Number of students & teachers, number of schools, sent-down youth in Heilongjiang Province.
--- Intergenerational Income persistence across Communist revolutions in China. The paper emphasizes the importance of intra-household culture transmission.
--- Gazetteer Data: County-level land distribution before and after Land Reform.
Educated Youth Should Go to the Rural Areas: A Tale of Education, Employment and Social Values July 2018 (Last Updated)
--- Sent-down youth movement induces more rural educational attainment, higher level of trust, subjective well-being, and better job satisfaction.
--- Gazetteer Data: Number of students & teachers, number of schools, sent-down youth in Heilongjiang Province.
