SPEAKER：刘宸昊（北京大学 博士候选人）

TIME/DATE：2025.1.7    12:00-13:00

CLASSROOM：A505

TENCENT：856934673

PW：542315

LINK：https://meeting.tencent.com/dm/ETBHsniSOERP

ABSTRACT

Previous studies on the role of legal institutions in economic development often lack practical guidance for institutional building. This paper fills the gap by testing the hypothesis that extensive trade drives institutional development. We document how trade liberalization spurred the growth of China’s legal services sector, namely, the substantive functioning and practical implementation of legal institutions. Exploiting WTO-induced reductions in tariff policy uncertainty as an instrument, we find that each million-dollar increase in export leads to approximately 224 litigation firms and 2,746 lawyers per million population, accounting for 34% and 19% of the total increases during the 2000s, respectively. Our firm-level survey reveals demand-driven mechanisms. Export expansion triggers formal contracts with overseas customers and generates spillovers in contracting to domestic suppliers, driving the growth of non-litigation law firms. Additionally, export expansion shifts firms toward formal litigation over informal dispute resolution, further boosting the development of litigation law firms.

GUEST BIO

Chenhao Liu is an economics Ph.D. candidate in Guanghua School of Management at Peking University. His research fields are development economics, public economics, and political economy. His papers have been published journals, including Journal of Public Economics.