Various cities across China are restricting new car purchases in an effort to curb pollution and traffic using either auctions or lotteries. Which of these two methods works better? In efforts to contain rapidly-escalating congestion and pollution, city governments across China are experimenting with numerous methods to pull cars off the road. Some of these […]
China’s Salt Monopoly: Cracking Down on Illegal Contraband
China’s 2,132-year old salt monopoly and why it makes sense to finally end it. Early last year Taobao, Alibaba’s online marketplace, went through a cleansing process to remove contraband being sold by merchants on the site. What was this illicit item? Was it cocaine or heroin sale of which is prohibited under China’s Drug Administration […]
Box Office Sales: It’s all a Matter of Timing (Part 2)
Last time I discussed how important movie-release timing is to box office sales in the US and how studios play a game of “chicken” to obtain the choicest time slots. This time I talk about how differently things work in China. Last time I talked about how studios play a game of “chicken” when scheduling movie releases […]
Box Office Sales: It’s all a Matter of Timing (Part 1)
Box office sales are a function of movie release timings, but warding off competition is a different ball game altogether. If you have ever watched James Dean in the movie Rebel Without a Cause, you probably remember the famous scene in which Dean’s character Jim Stark plays a game of “chicken” against the […]
Holding Up an Airline
The peculiar problem of pilot scarcity in China might be resolved with simple economics. From 1968 to 1973 US commercial airliners were skyjacked nearly once a week disrupting the aviation system.[1] Increased security measures eventually reduced such events to a rarity; but in China there is a different kind of hold-up problem disrupting airlines and […]
The iPad Index: Comparing Apples and Oranges
Is the iPad Index a good way of comparing the purchasing power parity of different countries? CommSec, a unit of Australia’s Commonwealth Bank, recently issued its annual iPad Index. The index compares the price of an iPad across 46 different countries–specifically a 16-gigabyte iPad Retina with wifi. The bank began with an iPod Index in […]
Starbucks Prices in China: How Much For a Cup of Coffee?
CCTV’s recent report examining Starbucks prices in China has created a storm in a coffee cup. Are the concerns cited by CCTV valid? Much has been made of a CCTV report concerning the high price of a cup of Starbucks coffee in China. CCTV-13, one of China’s state-sponsored television stations, ran a report on October […]
Tackling Excess Capacity in Industry: The Race Not Yet Run
Should the government take on the task of reducing excess capacity in an industry or is that best left to market forces? Imagine you have to form a track team but you are not allowed to run any races to judge the speed of the prospective team members. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology […]
“Beggar Thy (Hotel) Neighbor”: Some Hotels in China are Expanding at Any Cost
How opening new hotels in China could damage the entire industry In late May, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) celebrated the opening of the IHG Shanghai Ruijin hotel. However, IHG’s spirits were probably dampened a bit by the bad news it received a week earlier. It was ordered to pay RMB 150 million to real estate […]
What is the Price of a Good Education at Chinese Universities? It Depends on Your Interests
How will choosing your major affect the cost of your education? For students attending Chinese universities, price discrimination between majors is a costly concern. College applicants in the US often experience “sticker shock” when they discover the price of a university education. But one thing they do not have to worry about is how their […]
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