In addition to the most pressing issues of the day, scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies focus their research on many regions of the world, from Beijing to Brazil.
Research Spotlight
South Korea's Democratic Decay
South Korea is following global trends as it slides toward a “democratic depression.” Both the spirit of democracy and actual liberal-democratic standards are under attack.
The Deer and the Dragon: Southeast Asia and China in the 21st Century
Southeast Asian and Chinese perceptions of each other are examined using survey research and by asking whether China views the region as its “strategic backyard.”
Author Vincent Barletta explores rhythm as a primordial and physical binding force that establishes order and form in the ancient world, as the anatomy of lived experience in early modern Europe, and as a subject of aesthetic and ethical questioning in the twentieth century.
Achieving minimum dietary diversity (MDD), a crucial indicator of infant and young child diet quality, remains a challenge in rural China, especially for infants aged 6–11 months. This study examined the rate of MDD attainment in rural China, identified its determinants using the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, and Behavior (COM-B) model and Bayesian network analysis, and estimated the potential impact of improving each modifiable determinant. A multi-stage sampling design selected 1328 caregivers of infants aged 6–11 months across 77 rural townships in China. Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey via in-person household interviews. Bayesian network analysis identified key factors influencing MDD attainment and their interrelationships, while Bayesian inference estimated MDD attainment probabilities. Results showed that only 22.2 % of the sample infants attained MDD. Bayesian network analysis revealed that caregiver knowledge (a proxy of capability), self-efficacy and habits (proxies of motivation), and infant age directly influenced MDD attainment. Social support (a proxy of opportunity) indirectly promoted MDD attainment by boosting self-efficacy and habit. Notably, simultaneous improvements in knowledge, self-efficacy, and habit could increase MDD attainment by 17.6 %, underscoring the potential effectiveness of interventions focused on enhancing caregiver capability and motivation. The critically low MDD attainment rate among rural Chinese infants highlights the urgent need for targeted interventions. Strategies should prioritize enhancing caregiver feeding knowledge, self-efficacy, and habit formation to improve infant dietary diversity. Addressing these key factors could substantially boost MDD attainment in rural China.
The latest crisis was triggered by a terrorist attack at Pahalgam on April 22, which was especially provocative — and likely calculated to be so — by targeting specifically Hindu men for point-blank execution.
Journal of Medical Internet Research,
May 15, 2025
Background: The content of children’s screen exposure and interactive coviewing with caregivers are important determinants of early childhood development (ECD) that have been overlooked in past research in resource-limited rural regions. Given the prevalence of digital devices and diverse digital content today, determining screen use practices that minimize the negative impacts on children’s development is crucial for promoting healthy screen use among children.
Objective: This study aims to examine screen exposure among children aged <3 years in rural China and investigate its relationship with ECD outcomes, focusing on duration, content, coviewing, and interaction.
Methods: The sample includes all children aged between 6 and 26 months and their primary caregivers residing in the study area. A survey of screen exposure and household characteristics was conducted for 1052 eligible households. Caregivers reported the duration of screen exposure, defined as the average daily screen time over the past month; the content of exposure, defined by the time spent on educational and child-friendly content; and the caregiver’s presence and interaction with the child during exposure. ECD outcomes were evaluated using the third edition of the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development assessment scale and the Brief Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment. Ordinary least squares regression, logistic regression, and chi-square tests were conducted.
Results: In total, 28.23% (297/1052) of the children in our sample were first exposed to screens before the age of 12 months. Children exposed to screens had an average daily screen time of 27.57 (SD 38.90) minutes. Children who were exposed to screens before the age of 12 months and those who had longer screen time between the ages of 12 and 18 months were more likely to be at risk of motor developmental delays. Children exposed to educational content for >15 minutes on a daily basis had fewer social-emotional or behavioral problems than those with no screen exposure and a lower risk of delay in motor skills development than those exposed to educational content for <15 minutes on a daily basis. Caregiver interaction during screen exposure was associated with a lower risk of cognitive and language delays and better socioemotional skills.
Conclusions: The type of content viewed and how caregivers engaged in children’s screen time were strongly associated with ECD outcomes. Guiding parents to select educational content for their children and engaging in interactive coviewing may better protect children from the negative effects of screen exposure. The findings complement conclusions regarding the impact of screen exposure on ECD in resource-limited rural areas.
Using reading performance data from a randomized controlled trial of 5224 fifth-grade students in East China, this paper provides a novel test of the hypothesis that evoking a gender stereotype creates gender gaps in education through self-fulfilling prophecies. We found that without intervention, boys performed worse than girls did in reading tests. Evoking a gender stereotype by indicating the expected outperformance of girls over boys in reading had a significantly negative effect on boys and an insignificant effect on girls. As a result, the net effect on the gender gap in reading performance was economically important but statistically insignificant. We also found evidence that increased anxiety was likely the underlying mechanism. Finally, a heterogeneous analysis showed that boys from environments with biased gender role beliefs were more susceptible to the intervention.
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER),
May 5, 2025
China’s total fertility rate declined very little following implementation of the One Child Policy (OCP) in 1979/1980, but then fell sharply, by more than one-third, during the early 1990s. In this paper, we propose that strengthening bureaucratic incentives under the “One Vote Veto” (OVV) policy, which strictly prohibited career promotion for adherence failure, was necessary for more “effective” implementation of the OCP—and for its delayed impact on fertility. We use provincial variation in OVV implementation to estimate event study regression inputs needed to build actual and counterfactual sequential multi-decrement fertility life tables, finding that the policy explains 46% of China’s total fertility rate decline during the 1990s, driving it below replacement level. Use of intrauterine devices (IUDs, the most prevalent form of modern contraception in China) that was “recommended” by party officials increased by 133% under the policy, a relative increase more than four times as large as the increase in “voluntary” use. Overall, our paper suggests that population policy made a larger contribution to low fertility in China than suggested by past research. More generally, our paper highlights the central role of aligning bureaucratic incentives with public policy objectives, even in a centrally-planned economy like China’s.
Part of "Deliberative Approaches to Inclusive Governance: An Essay Series Part of the Democratic Legitimacy for AI Initiative," produced by the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy.
This paper examines how power lawyers shape judicial and economic outcomes by studying the “revolving door” between judges and lawyers in China’s judicial system—namely, former judges who quit the bench to practice law. In otherwise identical lawsuits, revolving-door lawyers deliver 8−23% higher win rate for their clients. Their performance in home versus away courts suggests these gains stem from both “know how” and “know who.” We extend the theoretical framework of Dewatripont and Tirole (1999) to show that revolving-door lawyers create countervailing forces in society: they enhance judicial decision-making through evidence and reasoning, but also exploit strategic arguments and connections to bias outcomes in favor of their clients. We estimate a structural model of the judicial process to quantify these trade-offs and find that increasing the supply of power lawyers can have a non-monotonic effect on equilibrium judicial quality.
Federal IT is a worthy target for Musk and his team of efficiency hackers. It’s overpriced with various estimates pegging the government’s costs at two to four.
Policy experiments are crucial for fostering innovation and mitigating risks and can serve as catalysts for transformative changes. This study investigates the governance of policy experiments in China, focusing on how political factors shape their outcomes. It emphasizes the need to consider concurrent trials—related policy trials implemented simultaneously in a locality that can influence outcomes—when selecting comparable cases for analysis. Such consideration is critical, especially when the policy issue spans multiple sectors and the level of difficulty differs across sectors. By comparing five cities engaged in the same three decarbonization pilots between 2010 and 2015, Hangzhou and Xiamen are identified to have had similar initial conditions and goals but achieved divergent outcomes. This research uncovers the critical role of political leadership in achieving varying levels of decarbonization progress and identifies policy coherence with broader local priorities to be the key explanation for continued leadership attention and efforts devoted to decarbonization despite turnover. The study contributes to the literature by addressing the under-studied impact of political factors and concurrent trials, offering a replicable procedure for future research and practical policy applications.
