This project introduces a novel geocoded dataset on Chinese overseas mining and exploration projects. We construct a firm-commodity-mine level dataset by 1) identifying the set of overseas mining projects from official records from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce website, 2) coding their geolocation, project owners, and commodities, and 3) linking the project owners to administrative firm-level datasets from China, including firm-commodity-year level customs records. The result is the most comprehensive and granular dataset on Chinese overseas mining projects to date, allowing us to provide new empirical insights into the process behind China’s mining investments and their economic and social impact in the host countries.
Wealthy foreign real estate buyers have increased rapidly over the past few decades. Of particular note are those from China; in 2016 alone, Chinese buyers were the source of over 100 billion USD of outflows to real estate markets worldwide. In this paper, we investigate the effect that these wealthy Chinese buyers have on local U.S. housing markets, local governments and residents. Using a novel instrument, we demonstrate that an increase in the share of wealthy Chinese buyers in a locality causes an increase in house price growth. As a result of this increased growth, local governments benefit from increased property tax revenues but do not see a drop in sales tax revenues, suggesting that the vacancy rate for Chinese-owned properties is no different from that of counterfactual buyers. A drop in rental prices suggests that wealthy Chinese buyers are more likely to rent out their houses and less likely to move into them.
This paper provides evidence of the long-run effects of a permanent increase in agricultural productivity on conflict. We construct a newly digitized and geo-referenced dataset of battles in Europe, the Near East, and North Africa from 1400–1900 CE and examine variation in agricultural productivity due to the introduction of potatoes from the Americas to the Old World after the Columbian Exchange. We find that the introduction of potatoes led to a sizeable and permanent reduction in conflict. *Media coverage: marginalrevolution.com* [[pdf]](https://www.jorismueller.com/files/Agricultural_productivity_conflict_latest_draft.pdf/)