Quid Pro Quo, Knowledge Spillover, and Industrial Quality Upgrading: Evidence from the Chinese Auto Industry

We thank David Atkin, Lauren Bergquist, Loren Brandt, Meghan Busse, Davin Chor, Kerem Cosa, Dave Donaldson, Jeffery Frankel, Asim Khwaja, Gabriel Kreindler, Gordon Hanson, James Harrigan, Hanwei Huang, Wolfgang Keller, Robert Lawrence, Ernest Liu, Benjamin Olken, Jessica Pan, Ivan Png, Yu Qin, Dani Rodrik, Meredith Startz, Heiwai Tang, Eric Verhoogen, Shaoda Wang, Shangjin Wei, Tom Wollmann, Daniel Xu, and seminar and conference participants at Baruch College, the Beijing International Trade and Investment Symposium, Bank of Canada–Tsinghua PBCSF–University of Toronto Conference on the Chinese Economy, China Economics Summer Institute, Columbia University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Harvard Kennedy School, IGC-Stanford conference on firms, trade and development, Johns Hopkins University, Microsoft Economics, MIT, National University of Singapore, NBER Chinese Economy Workshop, NBER Industrial Organization Workshop, NBER Development/BREAD (preconference), Stanford, trade seminar at Hong Kong Universities, University of Alberta, University of Toronto, University of Virginia, University of Zurich, UPenn China Seminar, US Census Bureau, World Bank Development Research Group, and Yale for helpful comments. We thank Ann Xie and Minghuang Zhang for generous data support and Luming Chen, Yikuan Ji, Yiding Ma, Binglin Wang, Yukun Wang and especially Youming Liu for excellent research assistance. All errors are our own. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

• November 11, 2020
• November 10, 2020